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A DOOR OPENED 



Behold, I have set before thee a door opened, which none can shut. 



ALEXANDER McKENZIE 




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BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

L TWO COPIES RECEIVED 



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COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY ALEXANDER McKENZIE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 029038 



//£. 



TO 

KENNETH AND MARGARET 

ifflte JBear Cfrrtbren 

I GIVE THIS BOOK 



• CONTENTS 

Page 

I. A Door Opened 1 

II. The Throne of Grace 21 

III. The Royal Bounty 37 

IV. The Chief Point 55 

V. The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit . . 75 

VI. The Grace of the Touch ..... 93 

VII. The Wheels and the Spirit . . . .111 

VIII. The Place of the Branch .... 129 

IX. The Story of a New England Church . 149 

X. The Place of the Prayer . . . . 179 

XI. The Virtue of Clean Hands .... 199 

XII. The Man and the Vote . ... . . 215 

XIII. The Sailor-Man 231 

XIV. Mending, Launching, and Following . . 251 
XV. The Christian Mysteries 269 

XVI. The Song in a Strange Land . . . . 291 



I 

A DOOR OPENED 

Reveiation iii. 8 



A DOOR OPENED 



The words concerning the open door are from 
the last book of the Bible. The thought which 
they express could have been taken from any one 
of the books ; for it is the vigorous, pervasive 
truth which is declared by Prophets and Apostles, 
and most of all by the Lord Himself, that God is 
stronger than any man, and that his strength is 
pledged to our advantage. It seems a common- 
place assertion as it is made in this form ; but the 
right apprehension of it is by no means common- 
place. The right use of it would give to our life a 
vigor and constancy which would enable and enno- 
ble it through all its course. But in these words 
which a man heard when he was a prisoner with a 
free spirit the strength of God is seen more 
clearly, and not as a force which overpowers every- 
thing before it and compels the results which it 
desires. It is seen in its intelligence, recognizing 
its own previous work, and keeping faith with 
itself and with the men whom it has made and 
endowed. It recognizes human character and lib- 



4 A BOOB OPENED 

erty. Hence it does not abandon men, as if they 
were to live alone ; nor does it drive them, as if 
their freedom were a fiction and delusion. It re- 
spects manhood, and pays its homage to the impe- 
rial gift which makes a man the child of God, par- 
taking of his nature, with his will incarnate in the 
life. It sees before him a possible destiny of 
honor and wealth, and offers him, not compulsion 
that he must secure this, but opportunity that he 
may possess it. It places before him an open door 
which neither he nor his fellows could have opened, 
" and no man can shut it." The picture is digni- 
fied and simple. Whatever shuts a man out from 
his true career, from the high estate for which he 
was created, has heard the commanding voice of 
the Most High : " Lift up your heads, O ye gates : 
and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors." To man 
He saith, " Enter ye in." Thus liberty is matched 
with opportunity. Our glory waits upon our will. 

It was so when Christ was here. He was in the 
greatness of his strength, yet He did not compel 
men to hear Him and to yield to his sway. He 
met them with invitation, promise, instruction. 
"Never man spake like this man," but it was 
speaking. He came into the world as the Word, 
and not as the earthquake or the fire. He did not 
force those who labored to take his rest. " Come 
unto me," He said. He did not drag men in his 



A DOOR OPENED 5 

train. " Follow me," He said. Light was for those 
who would have it ; life for those who would receive 
it. He said, " I am the way ; " "I am the door ; " 
" Strive to enter in." Sow your seed in good 
ground ; this is the good ground. Cast your net 
where there are fish ; this is the right side of the 
boat. Build your house where it will stand. All 
this is opportunity, which each man must improve 
for himself. The Lord never forgets who we are. 
He does not destroy in the act of saving. He 
preserves the manhood in its integrity, and lets it 
prove itself. With the earth at the feet of men, 
and heaven above them, He made both possible, 
but neither sure. " Behold," He saith, " Behold, 
I have set before thee a door opened." So much 
was certain. The uncertainty was all in this, 
whether a man would pass through the open door, 
inheriting the earth, the citizen of heaven. 

We shall find this principle of life wherever we 
go. It is inwrought with the constitution of the 
world and its affairs. Every man is glad that it is 
so. The one thing which we ask is an opportunity 
commensurate with our ability, and this we have. 
Certainly we who are here have it in ample mea- 
sure. By the labors and gifts, the sacrifices, the 
prayers of good men in many generations, the 
University opens and holds open the door before 
the whole wide world of knowledge. Before we 



6 ,1 DOOR Or EX ED 

were born the doors were opened, and never have 
they been closed. We cannot rell how mueh this 
means, nor know how vain and baffled were our 
endeavors, how hopeless our ambition, how fettered 
our aspiration, were it not for that which other 
hearts have desired, and other hands than ours 
have wrought. The University can do little more 
than to broaden the doors, and keep them open 
dav and nio*ht. This she will do. and nothing; 
shall hinder the willius; feet from crossing the 
threshold, the willing mind from ^atherins; the 
treasure beyond. She does not bestow learning ; 
she grants the opportunity of acquiring it. She 
points to her beaten path which leads among the 
stars, and bids men mount up and dwell with truth. 
The University is not a shop for selling knowledge. 
nor a factory for weaving it into cloth which can 
be cut in pieces and fashioned into garments ; 
knowledge is not a commodity which can be so 
dealt with. It is the door, the opened, open door 
through which desire and diligence can pass. In 
the enlargement of these later years this has been 
made more true, as there has come to be less con- 
tent with the transmitting of information from 
memory to memory, less belief in the impartation 
of facts, and a larger purpose to let every man 
work out his own education ; and now the chief 
thing which is offered is the opportunity to get 
what we ought to have. 



A DOOR OPENED 1 

The words of the open door are to be taken in 
the broadest sense. Special schools may open the 
way to special departments of truth. More than 
that must be done here. The name we bear re- 
quires it. University is a very large term. It 
is not an angle, but a circle. Its circumference 
touches the universe of truth, and is broken into 
doors. The word of which we are fondest and 
proudest, setting it at the centre of the seal, stands 
in its wholeness, an undivided, unbounded Veritas, 
— a word so large that it takes three books to 
hold it, and the three stand for the whole. To this 
liberal plan of work every department is devoted ; 
with how high spirit and generous effort and schol- 
arly purpose need not be told here. The present 
is not more indebted to the past than the past to 
the present. No instructor draws a line around 
his teaching, to shut it in from the greater world 
of truth, or to shut out the truth which has a right 
to enter his domain. The breadth of learning finds 
its expression in the correlation of studies and in 
the genial fellowship of scholars. Oldest and 
youngest, we stand together upon an untraversed 
field, whose lines are lost in the distant and bound- 
less heavens. It is this which gives dignity to our 
common work, and warrants the belief that we 
shall move on with the process of the centuries. 
If these things are true, it is clear that there must 



8 A DOOR OPENED 

be a place within, or beside, or beyond every de- 
partment of the University, in which the most seri- 
ous themes of life can be studied, as well as others, 
and the most sacred interests regarded : in which 
a man can seek and find the highest truths which 
concern him ; can know God, his Father, who 
desires to be known; and himself, the child of 
God; in which divinity and humanity, time and 
eternity, life and immortality, duty and conscience, 
can be thought upon reverently, faithfully, as doth 
become a man. These are not the special studies 
of a theological school alone, but the studies for 
every school and for every scholar. What were 
thought which does not think of God ; knowledge 
which does not know Him; life which does not 
live in the life and light of the world ? How can 
we respect the science of mind w T hich leaves out 
the one mind which is perfect and supreme ; or 
the science of things which does not reach beyond 
everything which we can handle to Him whose 
hands fashioned the heavens and the earth ? How 
shall we revere the study which stops while there 
are grave questions which can be answered, and 
larger truths which can be known ? If it be im- 
practicable for every lecture-room and laboratory 
to teach the name and method and purpose of Him 
by whom all things consist, then is it imperative, 
for the sake of liberal learning, that there be some 



A DOOB OPENED 9 

place where this advanced work can be done, and 
that the place draw every teacher and scholar to 
itself. Therefore in this group of buildings this 
Chapel stands in its own right. Among the multi- 
tudinous studies the teachings of this house belong. 
Everyman needs that which it is the design of 
these services to provide, needs to enter and fre- 
quent the realm of spiritual truth which invites 
the man who himself is spirit, where he can see 
God manifest to man. There is no compulsion to 
hear, still less to accept, still less to employ that 
which is spoken. But there is the opportunity. 
" Behold," He saith, " Behold, I have set before 
thee a door opened." 

But this is not the only purpose for which this 
house and these services stand. They are not for 
learning alone ; not learning and conduct com- 
bined make up the whole duty of a man. Learn- 
ing, when it is free, rises into worship. Conduct, 
untrammeled, becomes communion with God. It is 
the becoming recognition of our relation to Him, 
of our dependence which is complete, and of his 
benefits which are constant, to live as in his pre- 
sence and to begin every day with the distinct 
thought of God. We must do this when alone. 
But it is a good thing for us who live together to 
come up to his house in company, to read his word 
in unison, to utter our common prayer for the day 



10 A DOOR OPENED 

into which we are venturing'. To this high act of 
the spirit which is the man we are called. Into 
this worship the door is open. To the willing, 
waiting mind God delights to reveal himself, spirit 
to spirit, that we may walk in the light, children 
of the light, and in " the power of an endless life." 
It is in keeping with the purpose of this Univer- 
sity, from the day when that young Puritan min- 
ister who sits yonder beneath the open heavens 
lifted his eyes from his book to found a house 
w r here books should have their home and do their 
work, to this day when the great questions of life 
are receiving new attention and the problems of 
conduct are solved in charity and faith, and there 
is no limit to our thought and hope, — it is in 
keeping with our original and unalterable purpose, 
that Christianity, in its largest meaning and closest 
application, should have our devout and studious 
regard. Something is due to our origin and our 
commission ; to intelligence and uprightness. The 
province of Religion has widened till it is no 
longer a system whereby the confiding can in the 
world to come escape perdition and attain to par- 
adise. It does indeed make the future sure and 
safe ; but it does this by making the present wise 
and dutiful. Religion believes in to-day, teeming 
with its necessities ; in this world of God, where 
the divine life has been made visible. It is here 



A DOOR OPENED 11 

first that God reveals himself to men. It is here 
first that men must see Him, hear Him, enter into 
his decrees. The words which name and define 
spiritual things, that is, real things, lasting things, 
should be in the warp and woof of every man's 
language and living, every man's ; surely of every 
man in a college with its vigorous life, its uncom- 
mitted thought, its open mind and heart. In the 
studious retirement of these days, apart from the 
excitements of the outer world, we have leisure for 
all which greatly concerns us, and hospitality for 
all truth and duty. We may furnish ourselves 
completely for the work which waits for us ; which 
claims, as never before, the stout hands and large 
hearts of men who have a broad education and a 
liberal training in the things which the world, 
the stricken, impoverished, blind and blundering 
world, needs the most, far, far the most. We 
ought so to live and think that the world will feel 
the beneficent impulse which moves along these 
walks and issues from these doors and brings the 
kingdom of heaven nearer to the earth. We 
ought so to think and speak, to teach and learn, 
that good men without the gate shall lift up their 
eyes in confidence to these consecrated halls. We 
might even now give courage to those who are 
fighting the battle of right against wrong, and 
struggling for the good against the forces of a 



12 A DOOR OPENED 

naughty world ; and carrying the kindly light, the 
immortal life, over sea and land. Here is our 
opportunity, to which our future turns. All this 
we might do. " Behold," He saith, "Behold, I 
have set before thee a door opened." 

It is not the design of the College services to 
make a defense of Christianity, but to proclaim its 
truths and to administer its grace. Some things 
are settled. Two hundred and fifty years must 
have accomplished something in the knowledge of 
truth which needs neither undoing nor unlearning. 
Some things are of interest for what they are in 
themselves ; some for the work which they do. 
These interests are combined in Christianity. If 
a long and eventful history is fascinating, the his- 
tory of Christianity exceeds in fascination. If 
philosophy employs the high faculties of the mind, 
the philosophy of Christianity engages those which 
are highest. If the study of morals is profitable, 
the ethics of Christianity grant a larger reward. 
If daily duties, and the relations of man with man, 
and the complex requisitions of society require 
continual study and offer a recompense, much more 
does Christianity claim attention for the laws of 
personal and social life which it presents. If the 
ministration of that which is of the earth is good, 
the ministration of the heavenly is glorious. 

Think of the history which is before us. In a 



A BOOR OPENED 13 

village of an obscure province a child was born for 
whom the inn had no room, the world no care. 
The day of that birth has become the new starting- 
point for all civilized life. Not from the building 
of the earth, or the founding of a city, do men 
reckon the years, but from the coming of Him 
whose name in this remote century is emblazoned in 
these windows ; from whose coming the nation dates 
its treaty and the school its diploma. The most 
significant fact in the newspapers of the world is 
in the few figures underneath the title. Here is 
something to be understood and accounted for, — 
who He was, why He came, what He did, by what 
means He gained the place He holds ; what lessons 
He left, what duties cluster around his precepts, 
what hopes wait upon his promises. These things 
intelligent men must know. Break the rocks, 
search the stars, measure the forces of nature, ex- 
plore the mind of man ; but above all things know 
Him from whom the lines of our life run out, by 
whom our thoughts are held. This is for every 
man, like the alphabet and the Golden Eule. Se- 
lection does not reach so far as this. The elective 
system pauses on the confines of this theme. This 
is not one of many provinces in which we can 
choose our home. It is the one sky, the one light, 
the one atmosphere over and around all the pro- 
vinces, in which all true things grow and are glad. 



14 .1 DOOB OPEXED 

This is not one piece of knowledge. It is the 
fabric of all liberal knowledge, and belongs in 
every scholar's endeavor, in every scholar's wealth. 
There is more than enough in that which has been 
wrought under this new name and new date to 
enlist the thought of every one who cares for men, 
w r ho would know their governments, their litera- 
ture, their science, who cares for the most sacred 
things of life. Where, save under this name, is 
humanity respected, and liberty maintained, and 
the will of the people made the law of the land ? 
These are not dogmas. They are the facts of 
human experience, of which the large-minded 
scholar must make account, and he can. do it 
here. 

The work is more personal. It is not the study 
of externals and generalities. Here is a principle 
of life claiming a divine origin, and consenting to 
be proved by its works. Wherever this finds a 
man he grows in stature. He feels the thrill of a 
new force. He becomes purer, stronger, kinder. 
He is inspired for heroic, unselfish deeds. The 
spirit which he is asserts itself and rules over him. 
He walks with God, and has an immediate immor- 
tality. Fast as men feel this society becomes 
better ; evil disappears and righteousness possesses 
the earth. I know but too well the wrong things 
which have been done in this name. Even bearing 



A BOOR OPENED 15 

these, the record is a surpassing witness to the 
power of the new life. It is not for a mere belief, 
or a mere admiration, that the divine life comes to 
us. It lays its precepts upon us, and summons all 
men to the doing of its will. It demands confidence 
because it is true and obedience because it is right. 
"The words that I speak unto you," He said, 
" they are spirit and they are life." It is not an 
arbitrary authority, the rule of the strongest. It 
is the supremacy of the best; and the best in a man, 
in a world of men, has the right to rule. This is 
spiritual truth and spiritual force, and the only 
response is spiritual life. We may worship in 
Jerusalem and build an altar on Gerizim. But 
trusting in neither mountain can a man rise to the 
height of his own best life. In spirit, in truth, the 
man may worship God, life answering to life, love 
commingling with love, the divine with the divine. 
The door is open here. 

Every day is holy to the holy man. Every hour 
is sacred to him when life is sacred ; the evening, 
when the work of the day is done and in the 
consciousness of fidelity the workman takes the 
rest God gives to his beloved ; the evening of life, 
when the years are spent and the days are counted ; 
when the memory of work cheers the tired heart 
and is the presage of reward. Sacred is the morning 
of life, when the weapons are all unbroken and the 



16 A BOOB OPENED 

shield unscarred, and the heart beats high in the 
assurance of conquest. It is the time for worship 
and for consecration to the best. Sacred is the 
morning of the day, when the eventful hours wait 
with their claims and chances, the seedtime of years 
which are to be ; when so much of eternity is to be 
lived before sunset. Let us pray at evening. Let 
us pray in the morning, alone, in company, going 
apart from our common ways, in quietness lifting 
up the heart and voice. A day is blessed to its end 
whose beginning is with God. The word lingers 
in the mind, the song enters into the work, the 
prayer keeps the earnest soul with Him who " is 
never so far off as even to be near." All this is 
possible. " Behold," He saith, " Behold, I have 
set before thee a door opened." 

There are open doors which we have no power to 
enter. There are opportunities which are but a 
name. This is not of them. The artist is allowed 
to copy the painting of a master, yet he cannot do 
it. Nothing is lacking to the permission, but the 
picture does not come. The divine Child remains 
in his mother's arms, the transfigured Christ treads 
upon the clouds. Not so is it when God gives us 
permission to live. The word is with power, as 
when He said " Let there be light." No delusion 
is concealed in the commandment, no disappoint- 
ment lurks within the proffers of the gospel. We 



A DOOR OPENED 17 

can know. We can do. We can be. God is 
before us. " I have called thee," He saith, and 
" Behold, I have set before thee a door opened." 
We do not flit among the flowers, or pillow our 
head upon their fragrance. We enter into them 
and see the providence which clothes the grass. 
We do not rise to the under surface of the stars. 
We are admitted among them, where the heavens 
are telling his glory. Let us move on. It ill 
becomes us to despair, standing here, with know- 
ledge and duty hallowing the ground. Far as study 
will take us let us go : far out to the probabilities 
which thought suggests, to the possibilities it hints 
at: and beyond all these to that serener clime 
where the possible and probable yield to the veri- 
ties : where He lives who is the Light. We honor 
what we know by learning more. We honor our 
teachers by pushing out along the way in which 
they have started us. We fulfill our life when we 
are one with Him who said, " Because I live ye 
shall live." 

In the pavement of Westminster Abbey you may 
find a group of stones which bear the names of men 
who by their own merit have won a resting-place 
beside kings. They crowned themselves. One 
walked among the stars. One searched the Scrip- 
tures. One went forth to save a stricken land. 
Of these three each could have been a pagan and 



IS A DOOB OPENED 

have worked as a pagan. But for the fulfillment 
of their life they needed a larger intelligence, a 
profounder purpose, a higher, purer inspiration. 
They called themselves after Him whose name is 
Truth. Herschel broke through the inclosure of 
heaven and saw the hand which holds the stars. 
This, not less than this, was Astronomy. Trench 
learned of God from the Son of God, and of man 
from the Son of man, and of the stars from the 
student of the stars, and he became the instructor 
of men. This was Scholarship. Livingstone 
learned from Herschel and Trench, and from their 
Master, and went out to break the bonds of the 
slave, to illumine the dark continent, to "heal the 
open sore of the world." This was Philanthropy. 
Take from these men what Christ and Christianity 
directly gave to them, and something remains ; 
but not an ample knowledge, not an accurate 
scholarship, not the brave life which makes that 
central grave a shrine. They entered into life by 
the door which God had opened and they saw the 
things which are beyond the portal. Through the 
opened door passed the greatest of the three, the 
Scotch missionary, longing for service, intrepid, 
faithful : to whom the end came as he knelt in an 
African's hut, and threw his arms upon the bed 
before him, and talked with God, and entered into 
light while the candle at his side glimmered in the 



A DOOR OPENED 19 

loneliness. He passed through the door and walked 
in paradise. 

Oh my brothers, it is this which makes life ! 
Why should we halt when every great voice calls 
us on? Take all of good which is offered you. 
But pass on, beyond all which men can say, into 
that broader world of truth and duty, where God 
Himself bears rule. " Behold," He saith, " Behold, 
I have set before thee a door opened." 



II 

THE THRONE OF GRACE 
Hebrews iv. 16 



THE THRONE OF GRACE 



The " throne of grace " is an expression less fa- 
miliar to us than it was to our fathers. It is pecul- 
iar and full of meaning. The two principal words 
are not commonly associated. A throne is a place 
of authority which is to be obeyed. Grace is favor 
which is to be received. Duty is usually thought 
to be distinct from privilege, except as privileges 
are duties, and opportunities bring obligation. 
All language is inadequate to the description of 
God. Certainly any king that we know is a poor 
representative of the Lord of the whole earth; 
while grace, standing by itself, gives an incom- 
plete idea of his attitude toward men. The Lord 
reigneth, and his throne is from everlasting to 
everlasting. Its authority is founded upon its 
righteousness. The grace is an important addi- 
tion to the throne. It adds nothing to God's pur- 
pose, which is from the beginning, but it expresses 
the fulfillment of his intent in the act of redemp- 
tion. The Eternal Love becomes the Incarnation, 
and thus extends to men the fullness of its blessing. 



24 THE THRONE OF GRACE 

To come to the " throne of grace " is to come to 
God who has loved us. and has come to us that He 
might bring us to himself. 

Herein is a revelation. We clearly discern the 
eternal compassion which comes into the world to 
seek and to save. We have seen the grace here ; 
its name upon the earth is Christ. He is the 
grace of God. Now unchanged He is enthroned, 
and because of this the throne of heaven is the 
throne of grace. Men came to Him boldly when 
He was upon the earth, bringing their varied wants, 
and none of them were sent empty away. His 
power was always one with his mercy, and He gave 
what men needed to receive, crowning all his com- 
passion by giving himself to the world He loved. 
It was in this beneficence and holding this com- 
passion that He ascended to heaven, where He 
ever liveth to give grace to those who come to Him, 
to help them in their time of need. TTe have a vivid 
presentation of this when Stephen, waiting in the 
presence of death, looked up into heaven and saw 
the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right 
hand of God ; and as they stoned him, he cried, 
" Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ! " This is the 
illustration of the words of the unknown writer : 
" Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that 
we may obtain mercy and find grace to help us 
in time of need.'' 



THE THRONE OF GRACE 25 

But it is to the " throne of grace " that we are to 
come. The place is distinct. It is not a throne, or 
the throne of heaven, or the throne of Jehovah 
which is presented to us, but the " throne of grace." 
The confidence which should bring us to the throne 
in boldness is not confidence merely in the good- 
ness of God and his general interest in men, and 
his eternal affection for them, but it is confidence 
in God, who has in a distinct way made his com- 
passion known, and made it effective to meet all 
the wants which are presented to Him ; for it pleases 
Him to make known his love most clearly, and to 
reveal his mercy most plainly, and to help men 
most fully through Him in whom He came into the 
world. It should not need to be repeated that 
there is no change in himself, but only this out- 
reaching of his compassion. What He may do for 
men who do not know this coming of God to the 
world, or for those who, knowing it, pass it by that 
they may come to Him without regard to his com- 
ing to them, no one can say. The uncovenanted 
mercies are neither to be described nor determined. 
This we know, that He has come to us in his Son, 
in whom the eternal compassion accomplishes its 
intent, so that his throne becomes the " throne of 
grace," that is, the throne of Christ ; and they 
who come to the " throne of grace " find the eter- 
nal mercy in its highest revelation and in its di- 



26 THE THE OX E OF GRACE 

vinest thought of man. Let me give a very crude 
illustration of this : In talking with a sea-captain 
a few weeks ago, he told me of a fearful disaster 
which befell his ship and made her helpless in 
mid-ocean, and imperiled all the lives which were 
in his care. He did all that he could do for them, 
and for the ship. He knew r that he needed to be 
helped. He searched the horizon if anywhere he 
might see a passing ship. One came in sight, but 
went on its way, regardless of his signals. With 
deepened anxiety he looked again, and all who 
were with him looked. Another ship appeared. 
Again the signals were thrown up, but for a time 
they were unheeded. Presently the distant ship 
turned and began to approach the wreck. Then 
they knew that they were saved. There was no 
change in the ship or in the man who governed it. 
The only change was that she had turned to the 
men who needed her and who had cried out for 
her succor. She was the same ship, but in the act 
of turning she became the ship of grace. Do not 
press my poor story too far ; but God has turned 
to us, in his eternal love He has come to us, and in 
this coming his grace becomes real, mighty to save, 
and the throne of the Eternal is made the " throne 
of grace." Well may we heed the simple teaching 
of a man whose name we do not know, and " come 
boldly unto the throne, unto the throne of grace, 



THE THRONE OF GRACE 27 

that we may find grace to help us in our time of 
need." 

I do not wish to enter upon any consideration of 
the relation between the Father in heaven and the 
Son of man. Many things might be said, but I 
leave them for the present. Yet this practical 
truth should be clear in our thought and constant 
in our action, that the love of God is at its best in 
his grace, and that his grace is in his Son, who 
loved us and gave himself for us. So that evi- 
dently, if we would come to the grace of God for 
help, the shortest and plainest way is the way that 
leads us to Christ, who is the grace, where to our 
mind and heart God is nearer than anywhere be- 
side. 

It is evident that we are always in need of help. 
This is in the very construction of our being. It 
is not power alone we need, it is help ; which does 
not come to lessen our work, but to enlarge and 
exalt our strength. As civilization advances, de- 
pendence upon others is more manifest. The sav- 
age easily fashions a hut for himself, but when he 
has risen in intelligence he needs the architect and 
builder, and many men who shall make his house 
complete. His form of government is simple and 
easily administered ; as he rises government be- 
comes more intricate and his system of finance 
more inexplicable. Hence we find everywhere spe- 



28 THE THBONE OF GRACE 

eialists, men who work on extended but attenuated 
lines. Under this system every man becomes the 
helper of others, and every man needs to receive 
an assistance which balances that which he be- 
stows. So that we may say that dependence is the 
basis of advance, and that to do our best work and 
make the most of life we must be helped. It is 
natural to say this in the presence of students, 
who by the very fact of their being here confess 
themselves unequal to the life to which they aspire. 
They look to older men and wiser men, saying: 
" We wish to do our work in the world, but we do 
not know enough. We are not strong enough. Tell 
us what you know. Teach us your methods. In- 
spire us with the vigor of your lives." This de- 
pendence will remain so long as they continue to 
do good work in the world. We might define 
man as a person who must be helped. This rule 
is too evident and too common to be limited. We 
come very early where we need more than the help 
of our fellows. We need the help of God. He 
gives us our natural powers. He sustains them, 
as the sun sustains the light ; for if the light parted 
from the sun it would lose itself. Light cannot be 
left at your door every morning, as the tradesman 
leaves his wares, but must be continually shining 
upon your path and into your house, or you will 
lose it all. If you doubt this, some day when your 



THE THRONE OF GRACE 29 

room is very bright close all the shutters and try- 
to keep the light as the winter's supply of illumi- 
nation. In ceasing to be helped, you will cease to 
possess what you have received before. God must 
be continually giving to us. Life is ordered upon 
this plan. Our constitution shows this need. The 
Holy Scriptures declare it. It has the manifest 
advantage of keeping our minds gratefully and trust- 
fully upon God. As our mutual dependence fos- 
ters friendship and affection, makes society possible 
and pleasant, so does our dependence upon God 
promote and enrich our spiritual life. We can 
never think of God as in any sense dependent, 
except as He may choose to be. Yet in a very real 
way He does depend upon us and employ us. When 
He wants his child nurtured and instructed, He 
places him in the care of a father and mother who 
will be glad to do this for Him. He gives his 
teaching through the lives of men ; He proclaims 
his loving-kindness, not by angels descending from 
heaven, but by men and women who go into all 
the world proclaiming the good news of God. 
Thus, while making use of us, He carries his love 
the further, and allows us to call upon Him for his 
assistance, not to remove our work, but to enable us 
to do it and to accomplish the purpose of our being. 
It is this desire to help us because He loves us 
which brings into the world the divine grace which 



30 THE THRONE OF GRACE 

we name Christ, who does not come to conceal the 
Father, but to reveal Him ; who is not here to 
compel us, but to assist us ; who indeed brings 
fullness of rest and strength, but who offers these 
to all who come to Him, who in the coming shall 
find grace to help. There is an evident advantage 
in having the grace of God thus clearly mani- 
fested to us, for we know Christ. We have seen 
Him. We have looked day by day upon his help- 
fulness. We know the method and the spirit of 
his kindness, and when we come to Him we come 
boldly, because it is not to a stranger, but to one 
whose good will has been proved to the uttermost, 
and who has taken to himself the fullest power 
and right to help us to the largest blessings of the 
love of God. We come to Him, then, and, com- 
ing, find the eternal grace. He taught us that 
this was his place. More than any other He 
seemed to disown himself; He said He could do 
nothing apart from the Father who had sent him ; 
that his life was only to do the Father's will. This 
was so complete that He spoke the words which 
have sometimes confused while they should always 
convince, " He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father." He taught us to come to Him for the 
divine blessing. He claimed the authority to 
teach, and in all ways to help. He said the Father 
judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment 



THE THRONE OF GRACE 31 

to the Son ; that men should honor the Son even as 
they honor the Father. He saw in the temple men 
who had exhausted the power of their religion to 
help them, and on the great day of the feast He 
cried, " Come unto me. If any man thirst, let him 
come unto me and drink." He made that sublime 
declaration, " I give unto men eternal life." He 
paraphrased the twenty-third Psalm, which He had 
learned at his mother's knee, when she interested 
Him by telling Him it was his grandfather's hymn. 
It was after this manner that He repeated it : "I 
am the Good Shepherd, ye shall not want. I will 
make you to lie down in green pastures. I will 
lead you beside the still waters. Yea, though you 
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
you need fear no evil, for I am with you. My rod 
and my staff shall comfort you." He even added 
what had not entered into the thought of the first 
Psalmist, the promise which exalts and glorifies 
the Psalm, "I will give my life for the sheep." 
He let men come to Him and remain there. I be- 
lieve that He never pointed men away from him- 
self. When a young man asked Him what he 
should do to have eternal life He answered, " Come, 
follow me." When a man was dying at his side, 
bewildered by the pains of crucifixion, appalled at 
the future opening before him, and turned to Him 
for help, He let the dying man commit himself to 



32 THE TIIROXE OF GRACE 

his compassion : " I shall be in Paradise to-day, 
and yon shall be with me." He said, " I, if I be 
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto 
myself." Only He could say these things. When 
a man in his fear came to the apostle in the prison, 
and prayed to be told what he must do to be saved, 
St. Paul pointed him to One who is able to save 
men. If Christ had been there He would have 
pointed him to no one. He would have drawn him 
to himself, and saved him there. We may wonder 
what would have happened if those who came to 
Christ had passed Him by and sought the more 
distant help, if the ruler whose daughter was 
nigh to death, and dead, had prayed to the God of 
Abraham for her life ; if the sailors in their sink- 
ing boat had cried to Him who holds the sea in the 
hollow of his hand ; if the blind man had turned 
his sightless eyes towards the sun crying for light ; 
if the sisters of Bethany had prayed to God in his 
high heaven. We do not know what the result 
would have been ; but this we know, that the 
prayer to Him restored the girl to her home, 
quieted the storm, saved the ship, gave sight to a 
man born blind, brought the Resurrection and the 
Life to those who loved Him. 

Can we not learn the way of the divine help, and 
see that it does not stand aloof from us, but comes 
nigh to our door ; that we have not to seek it as if 



THE THRONE OF GRACE 33 

it were far away, but to receive it as it comes 
seeking and saving us ; for our seeking is but 
receiving ? We call upon Him when He is near and 
here where we stand, where we kneel, we find that 
He will abundantly pardon. We are indeed told to 
ask, to seek, to knock, but his asking is before ours, 
and because of his call upon us, we call upon Him. 
We knock at his door, but there is another word : 
" Behold, I stand at the door and knock." To hear 
his voice and open the door is to bring Him in, where 
He will sup with us and we shall sup with Him. 
We cannot feel deeply enough how strongly and 
constantly, with what passion and desire, with what 
importunity of love, He longs to help us in our 
life. Why should any one forget this, or refusing 
to see how truly He comes to us in his Son, who 
has all authority to bless us in the name of God, 
out of his own unsearchable riches, address himself 
to the King, eternal, almighty, invisible, who from 
his throne governs the universe ? He is nearer to 
us than that. He is more than king ; He is our 
Father. He is more than our Father in heaven ; 
He is our Father upon the earth. He is more than 
help ; He is " a very present help," and He stands in 
the greatness of his affection, stands so near to us 
that our whisper can reach his ear, that our out- 
stretched hand can fall into the hand of almighty 
strength and everlasting love* 



34 THE THRONE OF GRACE 

I speak lightly of no man's religion. It is too 
sacred. But to me the most pitiful thing which is 
known by that name would be to see a man who has 
looked upon Christ our Saviour, who has heard his 
words, who has marked his compassion, who has felt 
the glory and the sweetness of his presence, pass 
Him by to find elsewhere the help which He came 
to bring, and lived and died to make possible for 
us. We cannot do so. We know that life of mercy. 
We are familiar with that face radiant with its 
kindness. The tones of the voice linger upon the 
ear, " Come unto me, all ye that are in need ; come 
unto me." And the bidding would detain us, if we 
had the heart to pass Him by. We come to Him. 
We come boldly, for we are certain of his care for 
us. We come boldly, for He invites us, and we 
have known, and those whom we honor most have 
known how true it is that He is strong to bless. We 
come boldly, whatever be our want. Hungry and 
athirst, we call upon Him. Weary, we rest in Him. 
Uncertain, we confide in his wisdom. With our 
vision dimmed, we walk in his light. Sorrowful, 
we ask his solace. Sinful, we pray for his mercy. 
Living, we draw from Him our life. Dying, we are 
quiet in his resurrection, and in his gift of eternal 
life is immortality. We find grace, timely grace, 
grace for this world in its common ways and com- 
mon wants ; grace for this day with its real neces- 



THE THRONE OF GRACE 35 

sities and opportunities. We come to Him boldly, 
trustingly, constantly ; we wait with Him, content 
that eye and heart shall remain with Him. We 
are willing that life with all its changes shall 
reach us through his compassion, and that eternity, 
with all its solemnity, shall find us resting content 
in his redeeming love and in his exceeding great 
and precious promises. We trust Him steadfastly 
to the end. This is our confidence. We stay with 
Him. We mark the divine love in Him. We find 
all things that we need in Him, and at the throne 
of grace, which is the throne of Christ, we obtain 
mercy, and find grace to help us in time of need. 



Ill 

THE ROYAL BOUNTY 
1 Kings x. 13 



THE EOYAL BOUNTY 



The Queen of Sheba came from the uttermost 
part of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. 
She was amazed at all that she heard, and delighted 
with all that she saw, and confessed that after the 
generous rumors that had reached her in her distant 
home the half had not been told her. She brought 
her present to him, as was the custom of the times ; 
and when she went away she asked a gift of him, 
and history says that the king gave her all that she 
desired ; and that, having given her everything of 
which she had thought, he added something more 
of his own thought. He gave her this, not because 
she had desired it, but because he had desired it ; 
not for her heart's seeking, but out of his heart's 
wishing to bestow. This is the simple record: 
" And King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba 
all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that 
which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty." 
These last words describe the added gift, and this 
was doubtless the best of all ; that upon which she 
would think with the greatest pleasure, and of 



40 THE ROYAL BOUXTY 

which she would speak with the greatest pride. 
The word "royal" is well chosen, for we think of 
something which is great when we apply this term 
to it, as we speak of a royal deed, royal magnificence, 
royal benevolence, royal bounty. We readily ap- 
prove the action of the king, for it is this excess of 
giving, beyond that which is demanded of us, which 
makes the real generosity. We are in the habit 
ourselves, so far as we are generous at all, of 
reaching beyond the real necessities and requests 
of our friends, and giving out of the largeness of 
our hearts. There is something in the fruit which 
we admire which is more than fruit, and it is this 
excess which commands the high price. It is the 
added, extraordinary beauty of a painting which 
enhances its worth. Some pictures are sold by the 
square yard, and some by the inch. It is that 
which genius adds which is the royal bounty. . It 
marks the difference between genius and talent. 
To be what we must, and to do what we must, is 
narrow and uninteresting. The man who is just, 
and no more, wins our praise for his integrity, but 
not our regard for his liberality. There are some 
men who would on no account have their measures 
in the slightest degree too small, but would be quite 
as careful not to have them too large. There is no 
reason why justice should not be combined with 
charity, and a strict regard for the legal demands 



THE ROYAL BOUNTY 41 

which are made upon us with the excess out of a 
free heart which will make our justice beautiful. 
I saw in a fine country town a tall, graceful tree 
which cast its pleasant shade upon the path, and I 
marked that men had fastened upon it an iron frame 
which held a lamp that gave out its light upon the 
path. The tree was not the less a tree that it added 
the light, and the lamp was not less a lamp because 
it belonged to the tree. I came afterward and 
found that the bark of the tree had grown up 
around the iron where it was fastened to it, till the 
frame and the lamp were fairly incorporated in the 
tree itself. It is easy thus to enlarge our life, 
adding beauty to strength, giving what our heart 
desires to give to that which Sheba asks at our 
hands. This thought is strongly expressed by St. 
Paul, " Scarcely for a righteous man," the man 
who does exactly what he ought to do, and nothing 
more, " will one die." Yet peradventure, for a 
good man, who does all he ought to do, and adds 
something because he wants to do it, some would 
even give their life. This man appeals to our heart 
which is ready to respond. The best things are 
indeed only to be given in this way. They cannot 
be bought. They cannot be had for the asking ; 
such things as confidence, and friendship, and 
courtesy, which no statute can demand, but which 
the royal heart delights to give ; and there is a 



THE EOTA1 BOUNTY 

like royalty which is able to receive and prize the 
gift. 

This is G i*> way. to whom all life is but the 
expression of his heart. TTe rej ntinually 

in his bountiful goodness. What is the need of 
He could have made a strong and honest 
th which would take in the seed and give it out 
in harvest, and thus we could .: > . bur when He 
had made the earth substantial, useful as it is. He 
- - -::.-/.— He wished ro give them, was 
delighted to look . ... :hem. and knew how happy 
we should be who *; blossom by the road- 

side. There is no need of birds. The wor] 
would go its way. the seasons would ::i_: ■ .:.- 
another, the sun would rise and set. the forest trees 
would reach up toward the clouds, without them. 
God -1 this, and then tilled the quiet woods 

with forms of beauty, ai Lged silence into 

song. Even heaven itself has more than we should 
havelooke:! for J - might have had 

a good, delightful heaven. wi:/_ ;;: ::u r sorrow 
signing. v-i:h:»u: leath. and such a heaven we 
in the vision of the Apocalypse, which 



2 ites are pearl, a:: . :\.- -:; :o_ " ■ ;-..!-. whi/r_ :..::::o: 

.. gli-ten wi:h jewels. So i: mi^ht have 

:: v-i:h :. n^-rment uf this w,_.rld. We 



THE ROYAL BOUNTY 43 

might have had men to care for us, women to 
nurture us, fathers to work for us, a society whose 
process might move on with industry and safety 
from year to year. But God has added the richer 
delights of love and sympathy, of all that we name 
friend and friendship. It is in the same way that 
He frames his ordinances for us. We could have 
had all days alike, but when He had made six good 
days He added a seventh which should be wearied 
by no work, wherein the soul should be at leisure 
to live with itself in quietness, and worship God. 
He might have supplied all our wants in the course 
of nature, bringing his gifts to our door with reg- 
ularity, and we should have lived our appointed 
time ; but He does more than this. He lets us 
thank Him when we take our daily bread, and 
blesses the bread with the love which gives it. He 
even lets us tell Him what we wish, and to our 
wishes He gives patient heed. He might have left 
us to conscience and experience, in the light of 
nature to frame our character and our hope, but to 
these He has added the thought of other men, the 
revelation of his wisdom by his saints, the gift of 
his spirit to our spirit, to be in us a continual 
light. 

There is a very good expression of God's way 
of dealing with us in a line of the twenty-third 
Psalm, " My cup runneth over." This seems un- 



44 THE ROYAL BOUNTY 

necessary. To have the cup full, or a little less 
than full, is enough for us, and more convenient. 
For us, but not for God, who delights in filling it ; 
and when we bid Him stay his hand, He keeps on 
pouring, and the water flows, till, presently, the 
cup is overflowing, not because we thought to have 
it so, but because of his great delight in giving ; 
until it would seem as if He could not stop, or 
content himself with that which He has already 
bestowed upon us. Let this stand as a simple 
expression of his way with us. 

When we come upon anything that all good 
men approve, we may be very certain that we have 
found something which God himself approves, and 
which is in the method of his life. We like, 
among ourselves, this principle of the cup that run- 
neth over. Our liking for it we have inherited 
from God. We might expect, therefore, that when 
the Son of God has his life in the world He will 
live by this rule, which is of heaven and of earth ; 
and it is even so. His first miracle would seem 
unnecessary. There have been people who blindly 
but honestly wished that He had never wrought it. 
Why did He do it if there was no need of it, if it 
were even possible that it should be wrested from 
its meaning ? He had gone as a guest to a wed- 
ding, perhaps because the bride was his friend, 
and there came that grave calamity which would 



THE ROYAL BOUNTY 45 

mar the feast ; for presently it was whispered to 
Him, " They have no wine." Surely they could 
have a wedding without wine. Not that wedding. 
Not in the custom of that time. He knew that 
the bride, if she lived to be old, would never 
recover from the shame of her wedding-day, whose 
beauty was lost. Here was a necessity, in love, in 
kindness ; and that the cheeks of this girl might 
not redden with shame, He reddened the water into 
wine. 

He was at Capernaum. They brought to him 
a man sick with the palsy. They broke up the 
roof, and lowered him to the feet of Jesus, who 
knew well what they wanted. He passed over the 
little thing which they sought, and, governed by his 
own feeling, not by theirs, he said, " Son, be of 
good cheer ; thy sins are sent away from thee." 
That was enough. In a few days, the man would 
be able to walk without his help. Death comes to 
the succor of cripples. The man gave no sign of 
discontent, but Jesus found that the friends were 
unsatisfied, and He thought within himself, " You 
brought him here that he might be raised up, and 
be made able to carry his bed home. I have done 
a greater thing for him, but I will add this which 
you want." " Arise," He said, " take up your bed 
and go your way." He did the greater work which 
made the soul strong, and for the lesser work, — 



46 THE BOTAL BOUNTY 

well. He threw that in. It was the royal bounty. 
There was a time later than that, after his Resur- 
rection, when some of his disciples had toiled all 
the night upon the sea, and had taken nothing. 
He could not have it a fruitless night for them. 
In the morning He was there, their risen Saviour, 
who might well bestow some spiritual gift becom- 
ing to the Resurrection. This He did, but He 
said, " Cast your net on the right side of the ship, 
and you will find what you have been seeking." 
They cast it, therefore, and drew it in, full of fishes, 
a hundred and fifty and three. This is the record 
of a fisherman, who wrote that the fish were large ; 
and of an old man, who remembered the number 
of them. They drew their net to shore, and there 
was a fire of coals, and fish laid thereon, another 
fish. When they had enough, one that was better 
than all was added. Have you not sometimes 
wished that you could have had that hundred and 
fifty-fourth fish ? This was Christ's way all the 
while, and is his way still. He fills the net as full 
as it will hold, that our life may be sustained, and 
then He adds more, that his love may be gratified, 
and that which He adds is the " royal bounty.'' 

The work of our Lord was not merely in meet- 
ing the wants of men, but in creating the wants ; 
not in gratifying their great desires, but in making 
their desires great. His own work in the world 



THE BOYAL BOUNTY 47 

was twofold : to teach men how much more there 
was which they could enjoy, and how much more 
there was which He was eager to impart. The 
greater the desire, the surer it was that it would be 
met by his desire. Indeed, a large desire is neces- 
sary to wealth. We must look out toward that 
wherein our riches lie. " He who would bring home 
the wealth of the Indies must send out the wealth 
of the Indies." To him whose desires are allowed 
liberty there comes the answer of fulfillment from 
" the unsearchable riches of Christ." In all his life 
and in all his teachings we see vastly more than 
men ever asked, much more than they are willing 
to take even to-day. It has often been, as it was 
at the first, that " He came unto his own, and his 
own received him not ; " but to those who received 
Him He gave all they wished, and more than they 
had thought ; He gave the right to become the 
sons of God. They would have been content with 
a greater prophet, a bolder leader, a stronger king, 
a Messiah who should enthrone Israel and bring 
the nations in homage to its feet. He came bring- 
ing God to the world, giving an eternal liberty, 
erecting an everlasting kingdom. They wanted 
manna ; He gave the Bread of Life. They wanted 
wells of water ; He gave the well that should be 
within them, springing up for evermore. They 
wanted a leader ; He gave a Saviour. They 



4S THE ROYAL BOUNTY 

wanted man : and He was God. This has con- 
tinued even to our time. Many admire Christ 
because He was a teacher, neglecting that wherein 
He was infinitely more than teacher. They are 
glad of an example ; He was that, but, far beyond 
it, He was the life whereby righteousness became 
possible. There are those who would be content 
with his beautiful spirit, his blameless life, his 
deeds of charity, his patience, his submission, his 
consent to a death which He could not avoid. He 
offers to the world the spirit of the Eternal, the 
life of God to be lived upon the earth : He lays 
down the life which no man could take from him ; 
and, with all the roads leading from Jerusalem 
open before Him, walks with determined step to 
Calvary and the Cross. Beyond that which has 
contented many in the world, He gave himself, the 
world's Redeemer, the Lamb of God, the Good 
Shepherd giving his life for the sheep. 

It is very, very sad to mark how ready we are 
to measure Christ's gifts to us by our narrow wants 
and limited desires : not by the greatness of his 

' JO 

love, not by his exhaust-less riches, not by the full- 
ness of the grace of the Eternal, who is the Father 
and friend of all men. If ever we shall pass be- 
yond the gratifying of ourselves, and allow Christ 
to gratify himself in blessing us, we shall find in a 
glad experience what the simple words mean, " I am 



THE ROYAL BOUNTY 49 

come that they might have life " — Oh, friends, 
do not stop there, finish the sentence, — "I am 
come that they might have life, and that they 
might have it more abundantly." We ask life of 
Him, and He gives us life, and offers length of days 
forever and forever. We pray that we may live ; 
and we set up a goal at seventy or ninety years, 
when He draws no line across our path. " I give 
eternal life," He says. We pray for help that we 
may live ; He offers more than that in the un- 
rivaled sentence, " Because I live, ye shall live 
also." We think of life as being, and are con- 
tent. We use existence as a synonym of living, 
but He said, " This is eternal life, to know God, 
and me." 

So for ourselves ; we are to live as his disciples. 
We wish to be true, useful, and generous. We 
wish to do in small measure such things as He 
did, — in his name to give the cup of water, and 
the healing of the sick. He grants all that we 
desire, then speaks out of his own heart, and his 
desire, " The works that I do shall ye do, and 
greater works than these ; " for the miracles which 
attract us or baffle us, which draw us to his love, 
or possibly turn us from his word, which are only 
miracles because they are strange to us, are to 
be exceeded in the things which we do, when by 
our teaching we open the eyes of men that they 



50 THE ROYAL BOUNTY 

may see God, and lift them up to the ways of holy 
living, and raise them from being into life. Our 
visions of heaven in our reverent imagination, 
even in the exultant words of the Revelation, are 
not equal to the simple truths which He taught, 
and men learned to repeat after Him. For what 
are golden streets and jeweled walls beside that 
which he meant, " In my Father's house are many 
mansions." " I go to prepare a place for you." 
" Ye shall behold my glory." " Ye shall be loved 
as I am loved." The thought of Christ far out- 
runs the aspiration of the world, as it comes to us 
from the lips of that disciple whom Jesus loved, 
" We shall be like him, for we shall see him even 
as He is." 

What do we need, then ? To enlarge our de- 
sires ! Yes, but to consent to God's desires. To 
wish for more, but to consent to be blessed as 
Christ longs to bless us. We must know the 
methods of God, whose will to give is greater and 
more constant than our will to receive. We must 
adjust our life to God's desire. Faith is the com- 
pact of the soul with God, rather than with itself. 
" Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it," is a 
promise ever old and ever new. We must be firm 
enough and aspiring enough to hold the cup after 
it has begun to overflow, and to let God's hand 
pour the water of life as long as He will, for this 



THE ROYAL BOUNTY 51 

world and all the worlds that are to be. If we 
could desire more, if we could ascend to God's 
desire for us, life would be transfigured. 

" The balsam, the wine, of predestinate wills 
Is a jubilant longing and pining for God." 

" God loves to be longed for, He loves to be sought, 
For He sought us himself, with such longing and love." 

We wish now to take this method for our own 
in all our dealing with God. Our sense of what is 
right, the voice of conscience, the commands of 
Scripture, call us to our duty. Let us do what 
they require till conscience is satisfied ; but let us 
add to this more than a rigid obedience asks for, 
all that a loving heart, grateful and generous, 
wishes to bestow. The little questions of life, 
small matters of casuistry, minute affairs of con- 
duct, would be quite readily determined if we 
would live by this rule, wherewith God blesses us. 
That question which with unusual urgency now 
presses upon us, how we shall regard the Sabbath 
day, would not be difficult if it were our delight 
to remember it, and to keep it holy because it 
is our delight to please Him who has given to 
us its sacredness and blessedness. It is pitiful 
when we find ourselves questioning how much of 
the day should be holy ; how much of it should be 
given to the thought of God and the divine life ; 
how much of it we should yield to the holy spirit 



52 THE ROYAL BOUNTY 

of truth ; how many of the hours we should keep 
in the remembrance of Him whose Resurrection 
gives to the Sabbath its greater meaning. We 
should keep the Sabbath holy as if we desired to 
keep it holy. All its hours should be sacred. 
They need not be less joyous, less friendly, for 
being holy : and we cannot be gratified with the 
spirit in which we find ourselves trying to divide 
the time. Keep twenty-four hours for God, and if 
by any means you can make the time overflow add 
a twenty-fifth hour. 

We question again about money. What pro- 
portion of our property should we devote to God ? 
The Jews said one tenth. Can we do no better, 
after so long a time ? Let us give the whole, and 
if by any means we can compass it, let us add 
another tenth, simply to show what a delight it is 
to give all things to Him, and to let Him make the 
allotment in his care for us, and for our household, 
and for the church, and for the wide world that we 
are living in. There are many who do this, and 
they learn how true is that word of Christ that is 
called to mind among the Acts of the Apostles, 
" It is more blessed to give than to receive." 

Thus, in all things let us make the way of God 
our own, become his children entirely, receive the 
love of Christ in its fullness, make up our own 
life in his name, according to the largeness of his 



THE ROYAL BOUNTY 53 

thought. If we will consent to it, we can be great 
and rich and strong. It seems strange to say that 
we are not ready to be blessed, but of many it is 
true. They are not willing to be greatly blessed, 
to have the cup run over. They are willing 
to be useful, but not very useful. They ask to 
be set in his service, but when He takes their 
word and breathes his own desire into it, they 
shrink back. It is a very serious thing, if we 
are able to perceive it, to consent that God should 
bless us as He pleases, should have his own esti- 
mate of our character, his own measure of our 
powers, his own vision of our accomplishment, and 
should call us to greater service, to diviner em- 
ployment, than we have ever dreamed of. It was 
a wise woman who said, " I have had to face my 
own prayers." We face our prayers when God 
gives his own wish to our words, and makes them 
large enough to hold his thoughts. It is one of 
the hardest things to believe, but one to which, in 
humbleness of mind and in a faith which will not 
falter, we should consent, — that high word of 
calling and consecration which Christ gave more 
than once, — " As the Father hath sent me into the 
world, even so send I you." Not our thought but 
his thought makes our calling, and the thought of 
God is the summons and the guidance of our life. 
Even so, even according to thy greatness, and thy 



54 THE ROYAL BOUNTY 

gentleness which makes men great; thine infinite 
purposes, and thine eternal grace ; even so, O 
Lord of mercy and of truth, send us into the 
world ! 

As we close these thoughts, let us remember that 
promise which comes at the close of the Old Tes- 
tament, which almost seems to reverse the promise 
at the beginning of the Old Testament, "I will 
never open the windows of heaven and pour out a 
flood again ; " for the last of the prophets brings 
to us the word of God, that He will open the win- 
dows of heaven, and pour out a flood again. It 
shall not come to destroy, but to preserve ; it shall 
create life ; it shall enlarge life, but it shall be 
after the measure of his will, not ours. " Bring 
ye all the tithes into the storehouse, and prove me 
now herewith, if I will not open the windows of 
heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there 
shall' not be room enough to receive it." Not 
drops here and there, but showers of blessing. 
Not running brooks, but broad rivers. Not pools 
of water, but a shoreless sea ; deep, deep waters, 
when, looking up into jbhe Infinite Love, and con- 
senting to be blessed of God as God would bless 
us, we bring all the tithes into the storehouse and 
the remainder of the tithes, if any have been left. 
" I will pour you out a blessing, that there shall 
not be room enough to receive it." Not room 
enough to receive it ; that is the royal bounty. 



IV 

THE CHIEF POINT 
Hebrews viii. 1 



THE CHIEF POINT 



There was a chief point in what the Apostle 
said. It was not a collection of words, good words, 
religious words, but there was a centre about which 
they formed themselves, which gave to them their 
character and their value. What he really said 
was, The head is this. What the head is to the 
body, — giving to it wisdom and force and life, so 
that if the head is removed the body has no worth, 
— that the meaning of the words is to them. He 
has been speaking of the temple, the priest, the 
sacrifice, and now he suddenly stops, and says, 
" I do not mean these things which I have brought 
to your mind, but I mean the heavenly temple, the 
great High Priest, the one eternal Sacrifice. Un- 
less you apprehend this, the words which I have 
spoken may be of no benefit to you." 

It is so in most things. Truth and life need to 
be embodied. As gold is in quartz, so truth is in 
words, feeling in act, reverence in worship, love in 
service. The spirit must be clothed in flesh. We 
need the skill to discern the real in the formal, to 



58 THE CHIEF POINT 

look through the things which are seen and tem- 
poral and to find the unseen and the eternal. It 
is in this gift of discernment that men greatly 
differ, some regarding only the outward ; some 
caring little for that, except as it holds the reality 
which they prize. We may see this in very many 
places. Thus, in regard to money. This is not 
silver and gold, and property does not consist in 
houses and land ; but the value of wealth is in the 
life which it contains and in the high uses to which 
it can be put. Our Lord himself stated this very 
clearly when He said, " A man's life consisteth not 
in the abundance of the things which he pos- 
sesseth," and in his other words, in which He in- 
structed us to lay up our treasure in heaven, 
where its spiritual value alone can be invested. It 
is for want of the discernment to see this that so 
many who have an abundance of things are in pov- 
erty, while so many who have a scarcity of things 
have a permanent wealth. We may see the same 
truth, as has been already suggested, in words, 
whose value is not in their letters and syllables, 
but in the thought which has been thus expressed. 
As a book is not to be judged by its binding, so it 
is not to be judged by its sentences, and no one has 
taken the value of a book who has not taken into 
his mind the thought which it both conceals and 
reveals. Clearly it is not reading many books, but 



THE CHIEF POINT 59 

getting much truth from books, which makes men 
wise. The worth of a creed is not in its state- 
ments, but in the spirit and life which it con- 
tains and gives forth to be the spirit and life of 
those who receive it. Even the Bible itself has 
not its worth in that which the eye can see, or the 
lips can repeat. It is not in reading many chap- 
ters, or in holding the Sacred Book for many 
hours, that one gets real profit from it, but in 
walking by the light which it gives, fashioning the 
thought by the truth which it teaches, comforting 
one's self with its solace, and encouraging one's 
heart with its promises. " The words that I speak 
unto you," said the Living Truth, " they are spirit, 
and they are life." Again, the Sacraments which 
the church offers have not their profit in the forms 
in which they come to us. Baptism, while it uses 
the water, has its worth in the bestowment of spirit 
in spirit ; and in the Holy Eucharist we are to see 
more than the bread and the cup, even the life of 
the body which was broken for us, and of the blood 
which was shed for our redemption. 

Life itself does not consist in breathing, nor in 
length of days, nor in largeness of work ; but life 
is in the spirit which animates it, in the purpose 
which governs it, in the truth for which it stands, 
in the influence which it exerts and bequeaths. 
Hence, a great life can be expressed in very few 



60 THE CHIEF POIXT 

words. Indeed, a life can hardly be said to be very- 
large unless the record of it can be brief. The 
recital of its events may fill volumes, but the record 
of its intent lies within the compass of a sentence. 
If I speak to you certain names, the whole man 
comes before you, not indeed with the date of his 
birth or the time of his death, but with that for 
which he cared, and to which he was devoted. I 
say " George Washington," and instantly you think 
of him who was first in the hearts of his countrymen. 
I say " Samuel Armstrong," and at once you look 
upon the soldier and statesman whose life cannot 
be removed from the well-being of the republic 
which he greatly served. 

Experience has different forms, but the purpose 
of it as our Heavenly Father gives it to us is one. 
In its form it may be bright or dark, and those 
looking at the outside of it may call it adversity or 
prosperity, and we ourselves may give thanks for 
it, or pray for grace to submit to it ; but in all 
forms it means our spiritual good. It may add to 
the things which we possess, or it may take them 
away, but it is the adapting of the wisdom of God 
to our condition, and for the results which He 
desires to secure. So St. James teaches the man 
of low degree to rejoice when he is exalted, and the 
man of high degree to rejoice when he is brought 
low. But these different directions which Provi- 



THE CHIEF POINT 61 

dence takes are meant to bring men to the same 
point, — as one who is east of a place must come 
west to meet a man who from the west must come 
east to meet him. It is not of much moral advantage 
to make a rich man richer, or a poor man poorer ; 
but change, wisely conducted, may work in us the 
perfecting of character which all men should desire. 
What we need, then, in the changes of life, is the 
wisdom to look through them, to find what they 
mean, and to take that for our possession. 

One more thing may be mentioned in the same 
connection ; that is, work. Work is in very many 
forms. It requires a diversity of talent and a 
diversity of occupation. The professions of life 
have great variety. Work is to be judged, there- 
fore, not by its name or by its shape, but by the 
design which we carry into it. A work which is 
ranked as one of high dignity may be lacking in 
dignity if it be done from an unworthy purpose, 
while the humblest occupation which we enter upon 
with a large design will be exalted. A work done 
from a selfish motive is selfish work, no matter 
what its form may be. It is thus that God judges. 
It is thus that men judge. We pay highest honor 
to usefulness, and only to usefulness have we thus 
far builded monuments ; while highest of all, and 
alone worthy of us, is the intent expressed in the 
words of St. Paul, " Whether, therefore, ye eat or 



62 THE CHIEF POINT 

drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of 
God." There are diversities of operation, he said, 
but one spirit. He had high precedent for this 
opinion, when he recalled that to the great work- 
men of the church of God inspiration was given for 
whatever needed to be done. Moses was inspired 
to be the law-giver ; Aaron, the priest ; Joshua, the 
soldier ; Bezaleel, to work in gold and in brass ; and 
Aholiab in fine-twined linen. It is in this way that 
we are to estimate our occupation, — for what am I 
working, and what spirit animates my life ? What 
will be left when I have deserted my office, my 
shop, my house, and with nothing in my hands have 
gone on to the Great Day ? 

It were very easy to prolong these thoughts ; but 
let us go out among the worlds which are around 
us. It is a great world that we live in, which God 
has given into our keeping, yet is it small before 
the worlds which shine in the heavens above us, 
which have their brightness far beyond the reach 
of our eyes, in the spaces we cannot measure even 
with our thought. But what are the worlds, and 
what do they mean, and what is their worth ? Are 
they simply nebulous dust, compacted into stars, or 
into planets which circle around their central suns ? 
Is there nothing in them which the eye has not 
seen, which the optic glass has not discovered, yet 
which can be seen as we take our evening walks as 



THE CHIEF POINT 63 

truly as when we range the heavens with our 
telescope ? It was a wise astronomer who, keeping 
watch over his flocks by night, looked up into the 
skies, and saw the shining worlds, and saw through 
them into the life and thought which gave them 
being and beauty. So he sang, in words in which 
we still delight, of that which was within the stars, 
and within the light which came silently down upon 
the meadow. "The heavens declare the glory of 
God," and the glory of the heavens was the pre- 
sence of God, and he who had not seen this had 
seen but the outside of the stars. It were better a 
thousand times that one should know that the stars 
which he can see reveal the wisdom of God, than 
that, not seeing this, he should be able to call all 
the stars by their names, and to mark their courses, 
binding the bands of Orion, and sending through 
the quiet air the sweet influences of the Pleiades. 
Beholding the presence of God in the order of the 
heavens, that shepherd-astronomer saw the same 
orderly method and wise design in the laws which 
govern men and mark out their ways, until at length 
he was able to pray that he himself might be as 
wisely governed as the heavens were. "Let the 
words of my mouth be as obedient as the planets, 
and the meditation of my heart as pure as the light 
of the stars." This was astronomy indeed. The 
chief point of the heavens, God ; the chief point of 



64 THE CHIEF POIXT 

the law of God, in the heavens or upon the earth, 
the obedience of men. 

If now, drawing down our gaze, we look around 
us upon men, we see the forms of them, we dissect 
their powers, we study their actions, we listen to 
their language, we imagine their destiny. But of 
late we have come to think very much of their 
origin, from what they sprang, through what forms 
of life by slow approaches they have come to be men, 
the crowning work of God upon the earth. It is 
an exceedingly interesting study, and we cannot 
wonder that we have become fascinated with it. 
But after all, what is the chief point of it ? We 
have found, we say, even now we have found, how 
man has come to be the man, and we trace his kin- 
ship to the world of life which from the smallest 
form has risen to its loftiest estate. But what is 
the chief point of it ? After all, standing delighted 
in our new opinions, what is a man? Surely, not 
anything we see, not that which is born, and moves 
about the streets, and wakes, and sleeps, and dies, 
and goes back to the earth out of which it came. 
That is not man. The chief point of man is in his 
spirit, in his soul, in his power to think, to love, to 
hold fellowship with himself and with other men, 
and with the Maker of all men. The chief point 
of man is the breath of the Eternal which has made 
him man. The narrative which we read is very 



THE CHIEF POINT 65 

realistic in its portrayal. In a very simple form, 
in a picture which is little more than an outline, 
the truth is presented to us, that the Creator has 
given to men of his own breath, till they live in the 
image and likeness of God. Whatever we know of 
a man, we do not know him until we know that by 
virtue of which, in whatever way he is related to 
other forms of life, he is more closely related to the 
Eternal Life which was in the beginning. 

It is interesting to know our rise from forms 
below us, but it is of much greater moment to 
know that we have the life which is from above us. 

" Love the inmate, not the room ; 
The wearer, not the garb ; the plume 
Of the falcon, not the bars 
Which kept him from the splendid stars." 

More than this we are to know, that the spirit in 
which our divine life consists is sustained by the 
life of which it is a part, and is constantly rein- 
forced by the inspiration of Him who has given us 
our being. Life is continually to advance, to in- 
crease in power, in aspiration, in accomplishment. 
At last it will become so great that this body 
which surrounds it is no longer large enough and 
will disappear, while the life will go forth in some 
new and freer form, to live forever. Certainly, 
it cannot be for very long that our enlarging life 
can be content with these limits which suffice for 



66 THE CHIEF POINT 

seventy years. We cannot always spare a third 
of our time for sleep, or consent to the infirmities 
of age, when " they that look out of the windows 
are darkened." Very beautifully did St. Paul 
describe this in w T ords whose meaning we are 
reluctant to perceive. He seems to have viewed 
man as living in a house of snow. What other 
house could it be which would dissolve ? Where 
had he seen snow, unless it were upon the heights 
of Hermon, where it lingers through the year? 
Though this tent that we are dwelling in upon 
the earth shall melt away, when it has melted 
away, we have another house to follow it. It 
brings up the play of our boyhood, when we 
raised our houses of snow, and sat within them ; 
but they were cold, they were narrow, we could 
move but a step and we touched the walls. After 
a time the house melted, but the boy was left out 
on the open field where he had room enough ; the 
house had melted, not the boy. Day by day this 
is going on around us, yet we do not rejoice in the 
new liberty, the larger room to live in. We call 
it by sad names. We set it in sombre symbols. 
It is not strange. Affection is strong and tender, 
and we need the companionship of those we love, 
and the world is never the same when they have 
gone out of it. Let us speak gently of our natural 
and sacred sorrows. Yet can we not rise, and even 



THE CHIEF POINT 67 

through our tears see the chief point, the meaning 
of the dissolving of the house? God's angels 
come by two and two. To the child of God the 
Angel of Death comes in company with the Angel 
of Life. Sometimes we open the door and Death 
comes in. We close it quickly, leaving the other 
without. The dark form sits beside the hearth 
and makes the room silent and sad, while Immor- 
tality waits upon the outer steps. Perchance, 
presently, we open the door again and let him 
come in. He brings the intent of God, and we are 
comforted. In the thought of God the chief point 
of death is immortality. The whole tone of the New 
Testament teaching is like this. The life advances 
steadily ; at length, in an hour it breaks away and 
is free. The victory is won. The trumpets sound, 
and in the glorified body the immortal spirit walks 
with God. 

It is the great sorrow of our heart, its great 
burden, that we have so often failed to see the 
chief point of our life. Whatever, wherever its 
years may be, it is meant that the likeness of God 
which was created shall be the likeness of God in 
our endless way; that the thought of God shall 
be forever the thought of the man, and that he 
shall live like his Maker, in righteousness and 
love. We have no higher word than godliness. 
To be like God in our intention, our will, our 



68 THE CHIEF P01XT 

Jeed, is the highest attainment which life can 
achieve. But this we have not reached. The 
consciousness which saddens us, the vision which 
every day accosts us as we walk abroad, the daily 
knowledge of the world we live in, the refrain of 
history for weary centuries, remind us that god- 
liness has not been preserved ; that is, that the 
meaning of life has been lost, that its chief point 
has been missed. Shall it always be so? It is 
Christ himself who answers our inquiry, giving 
new spirit and form to the promise which from 
the first has been the comfort of those who re- 
ceived it, and has been expressed in many ways. 
Let us recall this, " Thou hast destroyed thyself, 
but in me is thy help." The Son of God came 
into the world, the incarnate thought and love of 
God, to do away our past, to give to us once again 
the spirit of the beginning, to enable us to live our 
life once more, and to live it truly. 

It is interesting to mark that the word which in 
the New Testament describes the course of men 
and one of the words which in the Old Testament 
describes it employ the same illustration. Both are 
taken from archery. When in the summer time, 
upon the broad lawn of a friend, the target is set up, 
and skilled hands are sending the arrows to the 
mark, you wish to show your skill. The bow is 
placed in your hands, the arrow flies, and the boy 



THE CHIEF POINT 69 

across the field leaps out of the path of your wander- 
ing shaft. What is your first thought ? " I want 
to try that again." What is the first thought of 
your friend ? " Try again. You will do better 
next time." Now, that is what Christ is saying to 
us : " You have missed the mark ; you know it, and 
I know it, but try again." It is this opportunity 
once again to reach the mark, the chief point of 
life, which He offers to us. Indeed, it would not 
be amiss to say that the gospel of Christ is the 
gospel of the second chance. Men have curiously 
wondered if there was a second chance in another 
world. There, is something much better than that, 
a second chance in this world. You do not wish 
to wait until next summer to see if you can hit the 
shield then. You want to do it this afternoon ; 
and it is with this word of immediate opportunity 
that the gospel is preached to us. " Now," cries 
our friend, the Great Archer, " now, is the accepted 
time to try again ! Now is the day to hit the 
mark." So prominent was this teaching in our 
Lord's life, so constantly did He devote himself to 
men who had missed, that it was noticed by those 
who were opposed to Him, and presently they fixed 
it as a name upon Him, joining it to another name 
of reproach. They said He was the friend of pub- 
licans and men who had missed the mark, — for this 
was the word they used. He did not disown it. 



70 THE CHIEF POINT 

He said, expressly, " I came not to call men who 
have been successful, but men who have failed." 
" To repentance," He said ; that is, to a new oppor- 
tunity. One day a man wished to see Him very 
much, but he was an unpopular man, and deservedly 
so, and no one would give way for him. He climbed 
a sycamore tree beneath which Jesus was to pass. 
He saw the man, called him down, and said He 
would go home with him, and as they went away 
together proud men who looked upon them said : 
" See there ! He is going home to dine with a man 
who has missed the mark." It was quite true. 

He told of two men both of whom had exercised 
themselves in archery, and that they came to give 
account of that which they had done. One stood 
erect and said, "I thank thee, God, that I have 
never failed. My arrow has always gone to the 
centre of the shield." Poor fool! He was sin- 
cere, I suppose, but the truth was his arrows had 
gone so far from the target he could not see where 
they had dropped. He supposed they had pierced 
the centre. The other bowed his head, and cried 
in piteous voice, " God be merciful to me, a man 
that has missed the mark ! " And Jesus said, " I 
tell you this man went down to his house to try 
again, and the other did not." But best of all 
these incidents was another that he told of a young 
man who wished to go into a far country where 



THE CHIEF POINT 71 

there was to be an archery meet. He wore his 
fine raiment: he carried his best bow; his heart 
was full of confidence. After a little he had lost 
his arrows, and lost his bow, and he came back. 
But as he came he thought within himself what 
he would say. " I will say, Father, before heaven, 
and in thy sight, I have missed the mark. Let 
me be as one of thy hired servants, to make bows 
and arrows for better men." But his father saw 
him, and interrupted his confession. " Bring out 
a bow and give it to him." The brother said, 
" But, father, he has had his bow, and missed the 
mark." " Bring out the best bow and give it to 
him. My boy has come back to try again." 

This is Christ's word to us in this gospel of the 
second chance, wherein, for our advantage, " now 
is the accepted time." Christ has gained for us 
the right to try again. He gives to us new strength 
and true skill. In doing this He gives himself. 
Thus He brings to us success, life, eternal life. 
But how does He accomplish this ? By his Incar- 
nation. What is the Incarnation? It is the 
dwelling of God in a man. What it is no man 
can tell. We take gratefully the teaching of the 
apostle, that He who was in the form of God, 
retaining the divine nature, took on him the form 
of a servant and was made man. The Eternal 
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, " full 



72 THE CHIEF POINT 

of grace and truth." He who learns this has the 
chief point of the Incarnation. 

He wrought out the redemption of the world. 
For this He lived and died and rose again. We 
rejoice in the Cross, whereby He has redeemed 
men ; but where was the Cross raised ? "We can- 
not tell, certainly. On what day did He die? 
We say Friday, some say Thursday. On what 
tree was He crucified ? Some have imagined it 
was an aspen tree, and that it is for this reason 
the leaf has trembled ever since. But we do not 
know. How, then, not knowing these things, 
can we glory in Christ and Him crucified ? Be- 
cause these are the forms : but the meaning of 
them is not concealed. The chief point is that 
He died for us. 

In what way was this accomplished ? How 7 
shall we explain to ourselves all that we name 
Atonement ? Good men have reasoned differently 
about it. Theories have varied. In the com- 
bining of theories we come nearer to the truth : 
but when all are said and reasoned about, and we 
hold our different minds, still we can take to our- 
selves the power of the Atonement, if entering 
within all forms we see the chief point, that He is 
the Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the 
world ; and He is the Good Shepherd, giving his 
life for the sheep. But how shall we come to 



THE CHIEF POINT 73 

Him, and have the benefit of his redemption? 
Some are coming as children, drawn by their first 
thoughts to Him who took children in his arms 
and blessed them. Others come in the strength of 
manhood, with great purpose following Him ; and 
some by a long and tiresome way, through the 
dark out into the light. Is there, then, no one 
way ? The chief point of all ways is, coming ; 
and he who rests in the redeeming love of Christ 
has found the chief point of his redeeming love. 
Life then may be long, and full of great events, 
the life of a prophet, an apostle ; it may remain a 
child's life ; or it may lead through simple, unevent- 
ful years ; but it is the Christ-life if it be lived in 
the love of Him. That is the chief point. 

We have missed, all of us have missed the chief 
point of life. Let us not miss the second time. 
Of what avail to try further, with the old spirit 
and the former skill which have disappointed us ? 
Let Christ instruct us. Then shall we come with 
a new life, into a new life, till we reach his hea- 
ven where there is no temple, for the Lord God 
Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it ; 
where there is no need of sun or moon, for the 
glory of God doth lighten it and the Lamb is 
the light thereof ; where they that have followed 
Christ upon the earth shall follow Him whitherso- 
ever He goeth, and He shall lead them, and feed 



I 4 THE CHIEF POINT 

thorn, and their blessedness shall be in the joy of 
the Lord : where their glory shall be in his glory, 
and the highest prophecy of honor shall be ful- 
filled : they shall be like Him, for they shall see 
Him as He is. In Him, — not in temple, not in 
golden streets, not in jeweled walls, not in gates 
of pearl, not in endless song and eternal rest, shall 
be the everlasting bliss, but in Him. The chief 
point of heaven is Christ. Let us not miss it. 
Try again, carefully, skillfully. Let us place our 
hand upon the bow underneath his hand, and our 
fingers around the string underneath his fingers. 
With his strength let us draw. Along the line of 
his light let us look. Then the arrow shall fly 
from his hand and ours, and it shall reach the 
mark. 



THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY 
SPIRIT 

S. John xiv. 26 



THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY 
SPIRIT 



We are living in the time of the Holy Spirit, 
for God is Spirit, and in his spiritual presence 
He fills the world. To this we all assent readily. 
The Incarnation is a mystery which we cannot 
altogether define, although it is clearly taught and 
deeply felt; the presence of the Holy Spirit is 
as simple as the being of God. If God is here, 
within reach of our worship, and close enough to 
be our sun and shield, and good enough to be our 
exceeding great reward, it is in this manner of 
being, — that is, as spirit, and as the Holy Spirit. 
We need not, for our purpose at this time, ex- 
amine the eternal nature of the divine being or 
seek to comprehend it in its eternal truth, as it is 
declared by our Lord in the words with which 
Christian baptism is sanctified ; but only consider 
the method of the presence of God, as this was 
taught by our Lord, and especially in his last hours 
with his disciples. He declares it, repeats it, un- 
folds it again and again, that when He has left 



78 THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 

the earth the Holy Spirit will come, and will 
carry forward the work in which He has laid 
down his life and which He has crowned with 
his Resurrection. To this end, it was expedient 
that He should go away. The world was to be 
enriched, not impoverished, by the withdrawal of 
himself. It was to have more of the divine pre- 
sence and grace. His friends would see Him no 
longer, but they would perceive Him, feel his 
presence, receive his truth, and be endowed with 
his life as never before. To this teaching, so 
plainly and repeatedly bestowed, we should give 
instant heed, that the full blessing which the love 
of God has prepared may be upon us. 

We cannot too often think that there is one 
God, and that God is one. This is the primal 
truth ; and whatever within and beyond this truth 
is believed or questioned, this we must constantly 
affirm. This is the place for reverent knowledge, 
not for curious controversy. The sublimity and 
solemnity of the nature of God might well have 
united men in patience and in awe. But even the 
words of the Son of God have divided the minds 
of men, and kept them apart. The time may come 
when this will be accounted one of the curiosities 
of religious thought. 

There are three periods, if this convenient ex- 
pression may be used, in the presence of God 



THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 79 

among men. First, He is spirit alone ; thus the 
prophets and psalmists knew Him. They looked 
upon his works and admired them. They heard 
his voice speaking to their hearts. They were 
confident of his guidance and help, but they did 
not see Him. In the second place, He was spirit 
as from the beginning, but He was incarnate, 
manifest in the flesh ; veiled, indeed, but yet so 
really to be recognized that our Lord said in words 
still beyond our thought, " He that hath seen 
me hath seen the Father." In the third place, 
He is spirit as before, but without the form of 
man, which has arisen from the top of Olivet and 
vanished from sight, but with the addition of all 
which He has accomplished by the Incarnation. 
The eternal purpose is now fulfilled, and in this 
fulfillment we rejoice, living in this day which 
kings and prophets waited for. The oneness of 
this divine life and presence is asserted in the 
words so full of truth, if enriched with mystery, 
" Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, 
and forever." It is not very difficult to illustrate 
this, although it is only an illustration and sug- 
gestion which can be given. If our thought does 
not hesitate, our language must always falter when 
we speak of God. Yet it is not entirely beyond 
his children to have an apprehension of Him. A 
young man, full of a generous ambition, inspired 



SO THE COMFORTER. EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 

with a desire to fulfill the command of his Lord, 
longing to bring the world into his light and life, 
enters upon a course of study which will prepare 
him for this work. At length he leaves the 
school, retaining his purpose and desire, which 
have been increased by that which he has gained 
in the patient years which have given him the 
larger knowledge and ability required by the work 
to which he aspires. T\ ith this original desire 
and this acquired ability, he leaves his own coun- 
try and goes to the end of the earth to be the 
apostle of the grace of God. I feel how very 
poor this is even as an illustration : yet we are 
permitted to believe that, in order that the eternal 
love of God which regarded the necessity of the 
world should find men and be effectual to their 
redemption, it was needful that the divine mercy 
should receive what the life in the world would 
give, and that having taken this to itself the form 
in which it had been gained could be withdrawn, 
and in the spiritual presence and power the design 
of love and grace could be accomplished. 

We have now the fullest revelation of God 
which has ever been given to the world, and we 
have God in the greatness of his power, with the 
purpose enlarged into the fulfillment. The Holy 
Spirit is the spirit of God ; that is. God. the Holy 
Spirit. He is here in the name of Christ, holding 



TEE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 81 

the fact of the Incarnation and all which it has 
accomplished to complete the Redemption and 
make it effective in the life of men. " He shall 
glorify me ; for He shall take of mine, and shall 
declare it unto you." In these terms He was pro- 
mised. " He shall teach you all things, and bring 
to your remembrance all that I said unto you." 
" He shall guide you into all the truth." " All 
things whatsoever the Father hath are mine ; 
therefore said I, that he taketh of mine, and shall 
declare it unto you." This is certainly distinct, 
and the time when these words were spoken gives 
intensity to the truth which they set forth. The 
mission of the Holy Spirit is to give Christ to the 
world. He was not to succeed Christ, as Joshua 
followed Moses, and Elisha Elijah ; but He was to 
bring the unchanging Christ into the life of the 
world, to extend his teaching, and his work. He 
was so to glorify, to illumine Christ that men might 
see Him. He would have said, as under his teach- 
ing St. Paul wrote, that in his ministry He was 
determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and 
Him crucified. As the apostle's ministry was 
wide, so is that of the Holy Spirit. The circle is 
very large through which He moves, but its centre 
is forever fixed, so that if you should take Christ 
from the thought of the Holy Spirit you would 
take away his gift and grace. 



82 THE COMFOBTEB, EVEN THE HOLY SPIBIT 

The order of grace, as of nature, is not succes- 
sion, but progression. We keep and we add. All 
that the Father was, and all that He has done will 
remain, as when the coming of Christ was added ; 
and so completely was Christ in the life and 
thought of God, and so entirely was He devoted 
to the doing of the will of the Father, that He said, 
in words whose deep simplicity we ought not to 
misconceive, " I do nothing of myself : but as my 
Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And 
He that sent me is with me : the Father hath not 
left me alone : for I do always those things that 
please Him." With similar words the Holy Spirit 
comes to us, and it is not presumption w r hen we 
think of Him as taking to himself that which 
Christ had said, " I do nothing of myself. He that 
sent me is with me. I do always those things that 
please Christ." What is this but the sublime 
truth that God is spirit, and that as the Holy Spirit 
He is presenting to the world Christ and the Cross 
on which the love of God has redeemed the world. 
As the Father speaks out of the heavens, saying, 
" This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him," so the Son 
of God is saying, as we look upon Him, " He that 
hath heard me hath heard the Father, and he that 
shall hear the Holy Spirit he shall hear me, and 
know the Father and me; this is Eternal Life, 
and into this knowledge the Spirit of Truth shall 



THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 83 

lead the willing spirit of men." It is very simple ; 
for man, too, is spirit, so that he can hold commun- 
ion with the spirit which gave him life, and " this 
is life ; " so that as light blends with light, and 
air with air, the spirit who is God enters the 
spirit who is man, and abides there in a union 
which is perfect and permanent. We are con- 
scious of this spiritual presence and influence. 
We know our own spiritual life, and the life of 
our friends ; and we feel sometimes, certainly we 
feel, that we have the presence of God with us. 

The confidence of Christ in the continuance of 
his life in the world is perfect, and was never 
stronger than on that night when He was giving to 
his disciples his last promises, before He went out 
to Gethsemane and Calvary. That confidence was 
to remain when He had been lifted to the throne 
of heaven. He was still to bless the world. He 
was himself to be in the world. He promised, at 
an hour when a promise, if possible, was doubly 
sacred, that He would be with his friends whom 
He was to leave in the world as his witnesses and 
ministers. They would not see Him, but they 
would know that He was with them, and it was 
to be in the person of the Holy Spirit. 

The time when this enlarged work of the Holy 
Spirit was to begin was therefore fixed by necessity. 
He had, indeed, always been in the world. He 



84 THE COMFOETEB, EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 

had taught men, directed them, inspired them in 
a presence and a power never absent from obedi- 
ent and waiting hearts. But as it needed the full- 
ness of time for the Son to come into the world, 
so it needed the fullness of time for the Holy Spirit 
to come. This is clearly set forth in the Gospel. 
Jesus stood in the temple on the last day, that 
great day of the feast, and saw the water poured 
from the golden pitcher, and the weary, thirsty, 
unsatisfied hearts of men around him ; and speak- 
ing in a pity and a power far beyond all that 
priests and prophets held He declared : " If any 
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." He 
promised more than that, — that if a man would 
believe on Him, there should flow from him rivers 
of living water. The Gospel adds : " But this 
spake He of the spirit, which they that believe on 
Him should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not 
yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glori- 
fied." That was the point, then, when the special 
and enlarged ministry of the Holy Spirit was to 
begin. It is impressive to mark that there was no 
need that He should add to what Christ had said 
and done, but only that He should give these to the 
world, renew them, carry them into the thoughts 
of men, make them a part of the life of men. 
The work for which the Father had given the Son 
was finished. The world was to learn this and re- 



THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 85 

ceive it. He could not announce the Resurrection 
of Christ till He had risen from the dead. He 
could not present the death of Christ till He had 
died. He could not bring to remembrance all the 
truth which Christ had taught till the teaching was 
complete ; then, when the Lord had ascended into 
the heavens, the Holy Spirit was seen and known 
of men, and the work of Christ gained their hearts 
and won them to the faith. 

This method is not altogether peculiar to the 
teaching of Christ. It belongs in other domains 
of knowledge. In these centuries which are not 
far behind us, continents have not been created but 
found; not lifted from the sea, but brought into 
the sight of men. The planets have not been 
fashioned, but they have been seen. Their courses 
have not been determined, but learned. The work 
of science is not creation, but discovery and employ- 
ment. It combines, directs, uses what it finds, 
makes the secrets of Nature the common truth of 
the world. On that day when the Holy Sj)irit 
came in strength, that Pentecost which we single 
out from all the Pentecosts of history, there was no 
new truth created, but the former truth was declared 
with power that never had been known, the power 
to which men submitted and by which they were 
changed. The Apostles had nothing to add to the 
essential truths of religion. They pointed back 



86 THE COMFORTER. EVEN TUE HOLY SPIRIT 

with steady hand, and from the past brought out 
the future. They taught what Christ had taught, 
unfolded his instruction, repeated his promises, and 
brought men to life. The grand moral and reli- 
gions truths which we are living by are Christ's 
truth. TTe still say M Our Father," and have no- 
thing to add to it. u My Father's house " remains 
the best picture of heaven. Love God and love 
your neighbor are the largest duty. The Lord's 
Prayer and the Beatitudes still content us, and 
there is no more blessed word for the weary and 
heavy-laden than that which has been heard through 
all the burdened years, ;i Come unto me and rest." 
St. Paul ascended to the height above which no 
man has gone and knew that nothing shall sepa- 
rate the loving heart from the love of God which 
is in Jesus Christ our Lord. When we would 
describe the spirit of charity and helpfulness, we 
find nothing better than his words which make 
Love the greatest thing in the world ; and we have 
no higher solace in the presence of the death which 
comes to every man, than his triumphant teaching 
of the resurrection, which rests all its weight and 
gains all its inspiration and the entire wealth of its 
triumphant encouragement from the Resurrection 
of Christ from the dead. Is there any truth which 
a man needs to-day for guidance and comfort, for 
faith and life, that is not found in the words of men 



THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 87 

who do no more than to find all their knowledge 
in the truth which Christ has taught, and in the 
life which Christ has given ? 

But to know this truth, to be able to speak it, to 
give to it an entrance into the minds and hearts 
which needed it, was more than Apostles could 
accomplish, was indeed the work of the Spirit of 
Truth, the Spirit of Christ, to whom He had com- 
mitted both his Apostles and his truth, saying, 
" He shall glorify me : for He shall take of mine, 
and shall declare it unto you." We are well aware 
how much depends upon the teacher of the truth. 
Even the voice makes the words plainer, and gives 
them entrance to the ear and to the soul. It was 
not the thought of the poet merely, but it was a 
necessity of the heart when one called for the read- 
ing of words which should delight him, and asked 
for this added grace : " Lend to the rhyme of the 
poet the beauty of thy voice." I call to mind an 
instance of this kind where the want is revealed. 
One of our own clergymen, himself a poet, fond of 
the poetry of the English Laureate, found himself 
unable to understand, or appreciate as he felt he 
ought to do, the poem of " Maud," wherein we have 
the unfolding of a lonely, morbid soul which feels 
the influence of a passionate love. But it was 
granted to this man to sit one evening at twilight 
in Tennyson's study at Aid worth, and to hear him 



NV THE COMFOETEE. EVEN THE HOLY SFIEIT 

read his own words. The voice was deep, strong. 
musical, and moved in a rhythmic chant, as if the 
poet were lost to everything about him. and were 
living onlv in his own lines, recalling the life 
which he had described, and which had been very 
real to him. The reading was full of feeling and 
reality, and the voice changed with the thought, 
sometimes moving as the wind among the pine trees. 
and sometimes falling like the waves which throb 
upon the beach : and as the reading moved on. and 
when it was completed and the voice was still, the 
man had gained the meaning of the poem, had felt 
the power of its thought, the influence of its spirit. 
Somewhat in this way the Holy Spirit takes the 
words of Christ, takes the words of the Apostles 
whom He has himself instructed, reads them to our 
heart, gives his own tone to them, his own accent 
and emphasis, till we feel them as at no other time, 
and they gain possession of our mind ; so that it 
may be said that no one has come to a full under- 
standing of the life and teaching of Christ till he 
has had the Holy Spirit read to him, adding the 
charm of his own voice to the words which are thus 
inspired. For the full understanding of divine 
truth there seems to be needed, even if in less 
degree, an inspiration of the hearer to receive it as 
well as of the teacher to express it. 

Take one saying of our Lord's, one of the last 



THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 89 

and largest. It was on Tuesday in the week of the 
Crucifixion. Two disciples came to Him, saying, 
" There are certain Greeks here who desire to see 
Jesus." Impressed with their coming, with this 
entrance which his words had gained into the world 
which lay beyond his own people, He gave no 
answer to the request ; but pausing for a moment, 
it would seem, He said : " The hour is come that 
the Son of man should be glorified," and a little 
later, " And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will 
draw all men unto myself." He would draw men 
of all nations ; the Jew and the Gentile would 
come, and there were no others. He said this, 
signifying what death He should die. The suffering 
at the Cross, the sufferer upon the Cross, the truth 
that the death was not for himself but for other 
men, the promise that in this was Eternal Life, 
would draw men to Him. What He had not 
accomplished as He walked among men, He would 
then secure. Men would come to Him, when they 
saw Him there. The way to God would be open, 
and they would consent to return to God, by the 
new and living way of the Cross. He would not 
compel men, but He would invite them, persuade 
them, and they would come to Him. It was a 
sublime assurance for the hour of his agony, and it 
marks the confidence which belonged to Him and 
carried Him steadily forward to his death. In this 



90 THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 

confidence. He was ready to lay down the life which 
no man could take from Him. He knew that He 
should draw men, and He has. In every land of 
the earth, upon the islands, upon the distant points 
of coral where a few have made their home, He has 
drawn men to himself ; and that which has drawn 
them, out of every tribe and kindred and nation 
and people, has been Christ lifted upon the Cross. 
This was the word preached by Apostles, witnessed 
by martyrs, established in the Church and its 
Sacraments, and carried by the messengers of later 
days to all the earth. It is this which has drawn 
men to Him, and which must always draw. I do 
not believe that a man ever saw Christ upon the 
Cross, really saw Him, knew Him, knew what the 
lifting up meant to Him and to those for whom He 
gave his life, and was not drawn to Him. It was 
so at the beginning ; it has been so ever since. It 
will be so to the end. But it is necessary that He 
be lifted up. It is not enough that He died upon 
the Cross on Calvary. Men must know that He 
died upon the Cross, and with what intent. They 
must see Him, and learn from Him, feel his presence 
and his life. He must be lifted before the hearts 
of men now, if they are to be drawn to Him. How 
shall this be accomplished? By repeating the 
gospel, telling again the story of the Crucifixion. 
There is but One who can tell it, and make it deeply 



THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 91 

felt, but One who can so lift the Cross of Christ 
that men shall be held by it, drawn to it, made to 
feel its infinite compassion, and be brought into the 
fullness of its endless life. Only the Holy Spirit 
can take of the things of Christ, the Cross of Christ, 
Christ lifted up, and so present Him that men shall 
be drawn to Him. When He lifts the Cross before 
the heart, men are attracted to the Saviour, unless 
they will that it shall not be so. Men are free 
even under this gracious influence, and if they 
will not come they do not come ; but if they will, 
the Cross lifted by the Spirit of God draws them 
and holds them. 

If I may change the imagery a little, the gospel 
has been compared to a seal. It is not enough that 
the seal be near the wax, that it touch it, that the 
wax even be conscious of the presence of the seal. 
The seal must be pressed into the wax, held there 
till its impress is made, then it can be removed, and 
the mark of the seal remains. The truth of Christ 
may be brought near the heart, may even touch it, 
and no mark be left. It is the work of the Holy 
Spirit to press the truth in, to hold it there, till the 
soul possesses it. Then there is stamped upon the 
soul the image of Christ lifted upon the Cross. 

We have the words of the Redeemer of the 
world. We know his life, his death, his Resurrec- 
tion, but we need to feel these, or to feel them 



92 THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT 

more deeply, and to have them fixed in our life. 
It is very simple, but it is very beautiful, even 
divine, that the Spirit of Truth will enter our 
thought and affection and will and life, and bring 
in with Hitn the grace and truth we need, and 
make them a part of our thought and life, inspir- 
ing our spirit with the spirit of love. He will do 
this, He will leave the mark of Christ upon us, 
deepening it, enlarging it; He will make it our 
life, till its joy and strength are ours ; till it be- 
comes courage and constancy and devotion ; till we 
ourselves are spiritual and divine, and the life that 
we live we live in the faith of Him who loved us 
and gave himself for us. To Him our Lord in- 
trusted the cause for which He gave his life. To 
Him He commits us, for whom He died and rose 
again. He is the Shepherd of Christ's sheep, and 
He makes us the sheep of the Shepherd, and the 
shepherds of other sheep. In this light and peace 
we live, forever drawn on by the vision of the 
resting Christ in his eternal glory; and as we 
live on toward Him, we hear the voice encoura- 
ging and welcoming us, for out from the heavens 
comes the greeting to our home : " And the Spirit 
and the bride say, Come ! " 



VI 

THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 
S. Mark vi. 56 



THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 



There are many ways of helping our neighbors 
and blessing the world. Some men take more than 
one of these, and others only the one to which they 
seem specially appointed. Our Lord, in the large- 
ness of his life, employed them all. He talked, 
and they said that never man spake like this man ; 
and his words were spirit and life, for He was the 
Truth. He wrought wonderful deeds of mercy, till 
those who saw them marveled, and from all the 
land men came to Him, that He might do what no 
one else in all the world could do for them. But in 
the record which preserves his words and his works 
there are few sentences finer than this, " As many 
as touched Him were made whole." He was not 
speaking, He was not working, but they came to 
Him, glad if they might touch but the border of 
his garment, and receive of his restoring grace. 
To more than are named to us was this blessing 
given. He gave it at a cost, for He perceived when 
virtue went out from Him. It was to those who 
touched Him, not to those who saw Him, heard 



96 THE GEACE OF THE TOUCH 

Him, admired Him, but to as many as touched 
Him, bringing their scant souls into contact with 
his infinite compassion ; so close upon it that no- 
thing separated them from his power and love. To 
this divine grace which was in Him we pay our 
homage, but we can do more than that ; for while 
it is quite true that no one can be all that Christ 
was, or do all that Christ did, still it is to be grate- 
fully recognized that in our degree his grace and 
truth may become a part of our life so that we too 
can speak words of truth, and do deeds of mercy, 
and be so full of virtue that whoever touches us 
shall be helped. We can never cease to adore the 
greatness of the nature and the life of Him whom 
we call Lord and Master, but more and more, as we 
come to know Him, shall we find that He does not 
present himself before us merely to be worshiped, 
but that his life may become our life, and that this 
world may be blessed in us. The branch is not so 
great as the vine, but it holds the same life, and it 
bears the fruit which the vine delights to bestow. 
He even went so far as to give a promise which 
always surprises us, that if we live in Him, we shall 
do the works that He did, and greater works. 

We certainly know very many who live in the 
power of Christ, whose words are spirit, whose 
works are mercy ; and many to whom this grace 
is given, that as many as touch them share their 



THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 97 

virtue. There are many sorts of people in the 
world, and this division of men is easily perceived. 
There are some who influence us by their words 
and works ; and there are others whose influence 
over us is quite as real who do not strive to do 
special acts of helpfulness, but are content to live 
and let us feel, if we will, the force of the living. 
Yet this unsought influence is joined to the power 
which shows itself also in active ministries. The 
life w r hich is manifest is the disclosure of the hidden 
life ; and because of what we see we are readily 
affected by that which is concealed, but of which 
we are so sure that without effort we yield our- 
selves to its control. It is not the mere silence, 
but it is the silence which follows words fitly 
spoken which impresses us. We read of silence 
in heaven, but it was only for about the space of 
half an hour, an island of silence in an ocean of 
sound. Words and deeds, if they be sincere, are 
the expression of the life which is behind them. 
Thus it comes to pass that men whose words we 
trust and whose kindness we receive are able to 
help us beyond their particular thought of us and 
our necessity. 

There are many who lack this ; whose lives are 
just, whose words are accurate, whose conduct is 
honest, but from whom there comes no benefit 
which they do not plan to give to us. Their cup 



98 THE GEACE OF THE TOUCH 

is full, but it does not run over. They kindly 
regard the petition of the Queen of Sheba, but 
they add no royal bounty. I think we feel that 
those who give to us out of the exuberance of a 
rich character, who do not need to seek us out and 
of set purpose to exert themselves to help us, but 
who do help us by letting us live near them and 
touch them with our trusting fingers, are our great- 
est benefactors. It is not unlikely that those who 
read these words may be conscious that the greatest 
help which has come to them from men has come 
from those who were not trying to control them. 
It was a strange reply, in the sound of it, made by 
a noted preacher when one said to him, " But you 
preach to do good, do you not?" "Heaven for- 
bid ! " he answered. His meaning is plain enough, 
that he sought to speak the truth, and to live it 
before those who looked to him, and to let it find 
its own way to each man's life, and let each man 
take from it what he chose. Men differ very 
greatly in this power of giving out to the simple 
touch. For this influence we have no name. We 
call it magnetism, which means nothing ; it cer- 
tainly is not that. The best word to describe it is 
vitality, for life holds by the very tenure of its be- 
ing the power to extend itself and join other life. 

The lessons one should draw from these teach- 
ings would seem to be obvious. Let us keep within 



THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 99 

reach of those who are strong enough to answer to 
our touch. Let us find little time for those who 
can only help us when they mean to help us, and 
avoid those who, whatever they may say, can only 
weaken us. Shall we have nothing to do with 
men who are merely righteous, and turn utterly 
away from those who are weak ? We can go to 
them, and stand near to them, when we are con- 
scious that we know that which it would be well 
for them to learn, and are strong enough to give 
virtue to them and thus enlarge our own. But 
we cannot afford, while life is serious and so great 
strength is required, to let those influence us who 
have no vigor which will give itself, whose spirit 
is dismay, whose biography is defeat, who can only 
surround us with the malaria of discouragement. 
No man can afford to consort with disappointment, 
but men should be strong enough to deliver from 
defeat those who have too little heart to escape by 
their own skill. 

It may seem that these virtues which have been 
commended are the virtues of quiet people, lacking 
force, strangers to the real life of the world. It 
is very far otherwise. The quiet virtues are the 
strong virtues. The Beatitudes of our Lord are 
given to those who are meek, and poor in spirit, 
and pure in heart, who show mercy, and make 
peace, and endure persecution for righteousness' 



100 THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 

sake. But they are for the vigorous nature. 
The acts which come for reward in the Day of 
Judgment are not the acts of men boastful of their 
strength, whom the crowd admires for their stature, 
but of men of simple ways, of large heart, whose 
works of mercy are so within their power that 
they can be the habit of their life. We hear of 
active and of passive virtues. There are no pas- 
sive virtues. Virtue in its very thought is activity. 
What is its first syllable but man in a robust 
character ? By the active virtues are meant such 
as these : courage, liberty, generosity. But these 
make no noise, set up no pretense, and their voice is 
not heard in the streets. What are termed passive 
virtues would be these : meekness, humility, pa- 
tience, purity. But it is clear that these virtues 
whose name is simple belong only to the strong 
character. When anything resembling them is 
found in a weak character, it is itself weakness. 
Thus meekness in a weak man becomes syco- 
phancy. Humility becomes servility, and probably 
hypocrisy. Patience is not the tame submission 
to the inevitable, but it is the brave adjustment 
of our thought to the conditions of our life. The 
apostle who was so fortunate in his phrases has 
spoken of this, combining two words that we do 
not usually associate, in " the patience of hope ; " 
the patience which with all its submission is strong 



THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 101 

in expectation, and the hope which with all its 
confidence waits quietly for its fulfillment. Purity 
is more than innocence. It is not the simplicity 
of a child ; it is not the colorless character of one 
who never has lived out of doors. Purity is the 
uprightness of a man who under temptation has 
kept his virtue, who has refused to be bribed, who 
against all inducements has refused to put out his 
money to usury, or to take reward against the 
innocent. It is to purity tried, enlarged, exalted, 
that the promise comes of the ability and the 
opportunity to see God, whom only the good can 
see and know. Virtue must be intelligent, never 
yielding itself to fear, never refusing duty. The 
test between weakness and strength was well given 
by a strong English woman, when at the close of 
the day she made this inquiry of her thought : 
" Have I done my duty, or did I sophisticate and 
flinch?" Virtue belongs with wisdom and daring. 
A weak general sees the enemy approaching and 
listens to his fear : " The enemy is strong, I must 
retreat." The virtuous general sees the enemy ap- 
proaching and listens to his courage : " The enemy 
is strong, I must bring up my reserves." 

It may impress these helpful truths upon us if 
we recall some of those who have illustrated them. 
They come readily to your minds, those whom you 
have met and who have blessed you by letting you 



102 THE GRACE OE THE TOUCH 

touch them. English students used to say that 

they felt better all Jay if they could meet Maurice 
in the morning. The sight of President Woolsey, 
as he crossed the college grounds, was a benedic- 
tion upon the students who saw his quiet walk. 
and looked with reverence upon the bending form. 
The saint of Harvard, who not long ago entered 
into his rest, was alwavs giving out virtue to those 
who touched him. A student was asked. " Why- 
is it that you always cheer him more loudly than 
any one beside ? " He hesitated, for he had never 
thought of any reason : then he gave the best 
answer that could be given : " I do not know. 
We like to see him around the yard." A student 
crossing the college vard. verv late at night, after- 
ward bore witness to the influence upon him as 
he looked up and saw ; * the old Doctor's light 
burning." The light was not burning for him, 
nor had the man behind it kindled it with any 
thought of reaching a wanderer over the green. 
It was not because it was a light, or because there 
was a man behind it. or because the man was a 
scholar and a preacher, but because the boy knew 
that the great heart was there busy with the truth, 
that a great worker was stretching the day into 
the night, that a good man was doing something, 
it mattered not what it was. which he meant to 
be of service to the world, or which would be of 



THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 103 

service, even if he was not thinking it. It was 
fine testimony which a plain man bore to a 
preacher of whom he knew little, but whose pre- 
sence was familiar on the streets of the town : " I 
would rather see him walk than hear anybody else 
preach." I knew an old minister in Maine who 
in his advanced years could do little service, but 
who was gratefully remembered by those whom he 
had long blessed. " No matter if he cannot work," 
they said, "it is worth all his salary just to have 
him live in the town." That is a beautiful tribute 
to a simple life which is on the stone by the grave 
of a good woman who rests in Mount Auburn ; 
only these words : " She was so pleasant." But 
why should I prolong the instances when your own 
thoughts have already outrun my words ? 

I am quite sure that you are more than willing 
to assent to all that has been said. But let us 
ask, each for himself, a curious question, and take 
time to frame the answer honestly, faithfully, 
patiently; let each one of us put this inquiry to 
his own heart : how does it affect a person to meet 
me ? Not, what things am I saying day by day, 
or what is the spirit of my words. Not, what am 
I doing out in the world. Not, what am I giving, 
how great is the sum of my charity. Not, what 
have I effected in my efforts to do good. Not, 
how far have my well-intentioned purposes accom- 



10-4 THE GRACE OE THE TOUCH 

pliahed the design I gave to them. Xot any of 
this, but only a simple question, perhaps harder to 
answer, but not impossible. When a person meets 
me day by day, lives in the house with me, is in 
the same office with me. rides with me to and fro. 
what effect does it have upon him ? Is he braver 
because he meets me ? Does the sun seem to shine 
more brightly ? Does he take up his work more 
cheerfully, and carry his burden more patiently ? 
Does life seem to him a richer thing, and does he 
bless God more heartily that he is alive, simply 
because, day after day. in the associations of life 
he touches me? We meet often, and when I am 
going up the stairs and he is coming down what 
does he rub off from me and carry away with him ? 
What deepening mark is made upon him because, 
while we are hurrying, each upon his own way, we 
touch one another? I do not ask the question 
with any thought of oppressing or burdening you. 
It is possible that some are not able to persuade 
themselves that those are blessed who touch them ; 
but I am confident that if we will be honest, as 
truthful with ourselves as with another, willing to 
submit our modesty to truth, we shall be obliged 
to confess to ourselves what we never speak aloud, 
that we trust, we quietly trust, that those who touch 
us are healed. It were a pity to have it otherwise 
when it is not difficult to have it thus. 



THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 105 

We agree in this, that a life such as we have 
been thinking upon is greatly to be desired. We 
should like to make our influence only for good, 
and then to deepen it. We wish that we could 
enlarge life, could make it tell for more, but we 
think we are not very wise ; we know that we are 
not rich ; we dare attempt no lofty enterprise. We 
cannot be always talking, with so much that we are 
compelled to do. We cannot be always carrying 
our neighbors in our mind, and reaching out to 
help them. The days are short and work is hard. 
Necessity is exacting in its claims. What, then, 
can we do? It is possible so to have ourselves 
that when we are hurrying to our work, when we 
are most busily committed to it, when there comes 
to us only the brief leisure of a chance meeting, or 
the quiet method of common life, we may still be 
of service, perhaps of greater service than if we 
were striving to do some good we had resolved 
upon, — if we can keep ourselves so full of virtue 
that they who touch us shall be made whole. It 
is light, not lightning, that serves the purposes of 
men. It was finely said, that the sun does not lec- 
ture the planets upon the duty of shining, but it 
shines; and if the planets come in its way they 
have to shine also, for the light falls upon them 
and flashes away from them. 

This is after our desire ; happily, as we should 



106 THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 

expect, this is God's appointment. In his kind- 
ness to the world He has made few great men ; 
but in his kindness He has ordained that every 
man may do the deeds which shall help the world, 
and beyond this may do good to the world simply 
by living in it. When He would improve the 
home, his method is to give more virtue to some 
one within it, who, because they are there together, 
must touch others every day. When a great good 
comes to the church, it comes not, commonly, in 
some flood of blessing, falling at once upon every 
heart, but it comes to the few, who will to have 
it so, who are living much in the thought of God, 
and in communion with his word, and who like 
their Lord go up into the mountain, and continue 
all night in prayer. They stand, they live, within 
the church, and men come and go around them, 
and whoever touches them is blessed. This is 
God's appointment. Can we consent to it? Can 
we fail to consent to it, if we desire to make our 
life large and true, to be such men that the power 
of Christ shall be w T ithin us, and the grace of the 
touch shall be the blessing of God to those who 
know us ? 

We can have a great enlargement of our influ- 
ence if we desire it, if we can believe that which 
we know, the power that comes in quietness from 
the resources of strength that are beneath it. It 



THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 107 

must be an honest influence and constant. We do 
little good with long intervals. The current of 
life must not be interrupted, if life is to reach its 
appointed end. We cannot by anything that we 
wear make up for the lack of hidden virtue. 
Pretense is soon discovered, and one who has been 
found insincere has narrowed his life through his 
dishonor. Not by saying good words which possi- 
bly we do not believe, or performing brave actions 
simply for effect, can we make our life robust. 
We hear much of setting an example. I do not 
know which is the more devoid of interest, setting 
an example, or following an example. To do 
what we do not wish to do, in order that somebody 
else may do what he does not wish to do, can have 
little pleasure and less value. The trick is soon 
found out. They make artificial flowers which 
deceive the eye, but the touch finds out the sham. 
It is only truth, constantly obeyed and thoroughly 
believed in, which will give to us the power of 
responding with the grace of the touch. 

We need to caution ourselves here. There is 
an attraction in unconscious influence which may 
betray us. If we fancy that it is easier and cheaper 
to work and give unconsciously than with design, 
with actual words and with the coin of the realm, 
we may find that our life is devoid of good, either 
intentioned or unintentioned. We need always to 



108 THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 

be on our guard against the easy way ; the way of 
influence which is hardest may still be the best. 
Yet it is not against a useful life that it is agree- 
able to us and brings the reward which we are 
not seeking. It is always to be remembered that 
the life which responds readily to the touch is a 
life that we have made great in its wisdom and 
vigorous in its force. A great character is a great 
achievement, and we shall esteem it the greater 
when we mark the steadiness of its influence. 
How shall we get this power to help men who 
simply touch us ? We shall get it from God, from 
loving intercourse with Him whose gentleness gives 
greatness. We shall receive it in the place of 
prayer. We shall find it in the Bible where the 
silent words, waiting submissively for our wonder- 
ing eyes, give out their light to us. The entrance 
of the word of God gives understanding to the 
simple and power to those who have no strength. 
We shall find it in the service of Him who is the 
Truth and the Life, who gives to us abundantly of 
that which made Him divine, that bearing his 
name we may do his work in the world. When, 
putting away that which imprisons us with our- 
selves, and leaves us shut out from the day, we 
come to Him who is " never so far off as even to 
be near," and permit nothing to separate us from 
the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord, 



THE GRACE OF THE TOUCH 109 

then shall there come to us the light and life and 
love which are in Him. 

We bring from men who have gained this 
divine life that which will be life to us. We learn 
of those who have learned of God. We touch 
those who have touched Him, and the grace of 
God, not lessened by coming in their lives, is 
made our own. Strength and comfort are given 
to us from the hands of men. Let us keep with 
men in whom we find the grace of the touch, but 
with them let us reach out our hand to Him who in 
himself has the life divine, lifting up our nighted 
eyes till they shall touch his fingers, turning our 
brow to Him till He shall breathe upon it the Holy 
Spirit, opening our inmost life till He shall fill it 
with his glory. Then shall we know, and those 
who live with us shall know, what that simple 
word of the gospel means, "As many as touched 
Him were made w r hole." 



VII 

THE WHEELS AND THE SPIRIT 
Ezekiel i. 21 



THE WHEELS AND THE SPIRIT 



This is a mechanical age which we are living in. 
There is no imagery which presents it better than 
that which was used by the Hebrew prophet, one 
of the captives by the river of Chebar, who saw in 
his vision what he could only describe as wheels, 
with living creatures among them. The figure is 
very bold, but somewhat confusing. It is plain 
that the wheels stand for the forces of the divine 
rule in the earth, in government, in providence, 
and in all the control exercised by God. The 
living creatures are God's messengers and ministers 
by whose action the course of things is directed in 
the world. They have various names, cherubim, 
angels, men. The comparison is not peculiar to 
the prophet, for St. James speaks, long afterward, 
of " the wheel of nature ; " and in many places 
Holy Scripture presents to us the spirit which is 
moving in the affairs of men. 

I am not concerned now with the special thought 
of the Hebrew exile, yet the illustration has its 
meaning here. I do not know that I can better 



114 THE WHEELS AXD THE SPIRIT 

describe the work of the world than under this 
imagery of wheels, mechanism, arrangement, 
through which the thought of men is moving, and 
by which the purposes of men accomplish their 
decrees. One verse written by Ezekiel may bring 
this more distinctly to our minds : " When those 
went, these went; and when those stood, these 
stood ; and when those were lifted up from the 
earth, the wheels were lifted up beside them : for 
the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels." 
We have indeed come upon such a time as that. 
The days are full of inventions, most of which are 
to no purpose, but a few of which, the survival of 
many experiments, become a part of our common 
life. We talk, write, sing, hear, by machinery. 
We travel and print by it. We work with it, and 
play with it. We plant and we reap with it ; 
until almost everything that can be done by mech- 
anism is employing it. One whose time might 
have been better spent has gone so far as to con- 
trive an appliance by which many cups for the 
Holy Communion can be filled at one time, thus 
leaving leisure for something more desirable than 
this service of the sanctuary. Government itself 
is largely an affair of mechanism. We have con- 
stitutions, laws, offices, officers, almost without 
limit. In society, we have associations, clubs, 
leagues, colleges, churches, till it is no small part 



THE WHEELS AND THE SPIRIT 115 

of an education to discover these auxiliaries and to 
know how to use them with economy. 

This is considered an advance, and doubtless it 
is. To utilize the forces of nature is one of the 
highest achievements of our time. To discover 
power, to combine forces, to league them with our 
will, is certainly to enlarge life, and greatly to 
increase its accomplishment. But it must be con- 
fessed that there are some considerations upon the 
other side. By machinery which works rapidly we 
may produce more things than are needed, and 
enterprise may be checked, business hampered, and 
men deprived of opportunities for work because of 
the goods which are stored up until the time when 
they shall be wanted. It is a very serious inquiry, 
also, whether the time which we gain by the new 
methods is employed to any better purpose than 
when it was engaged in the old ways. It is true 
that we travel much faster than we used to do ; but 
is this altogether a gain ? Are we not away from 
home too much, wearying ourselves by rushing 
from place to place, and lessening our interest in 
all places by being devoted to none ? The crowds 
of burdened, anxious people along our streets, 
thronging our stores, standing in our cars, cannot 
but suggest the thought that it were much better 
if it had been more difficult for them to quit their 
homes. We print much more rapidly and cheaply 



116 THE WHEELS AXD THE SPIRIT 

than ever before : the result is that we print 
many things which should never be published, 
and flood the world with a great deal of reading 
of which nothing can be said so good as that it is 
utterly worthless. If it were more costly to print 
a book, we should have fewer poor books ; if it 
were more costly to own a book, we should buy 
fewer which are not worth the reading. It is con- 
fessed by those who know the most about it that it 
was never so hard to do business as it is now. 
Our business men were never so hurried ; their 
hours of work were never so long : their periods of 
rest never so anxious as in these days of rapid 
transit, when one can speak to his neighbor across 
the continent, and bring every morning to his desk 
the recent news from the most distant clime. It is 
very greatly to be doubted whether the machinery 
which finds its way into our houses and offices and 
factories has made life any pleasanter or work any 
more remunerative. The slow methods almost 
compelled thought. The mind seems to work most 
steadily when the hands are employed. The very 
concentration of our force upon some occupation 
which is so simple as to dispense with constant care 
favors the employment of our thought and the fix- 
ing it in well-ordered channels that it may work 
out patient results. It was the testimony of one 
of the men who sought repose and comfort at 



THE WHEELS AND THE SPIRIT 117 

Brook Farm, one of the few thoughts which have 
come from that experiment and are worth preserv- 
ing, that milking cows is favorable to meditation. 

There was certainly something in the old home 
ways which fostered thrift and thought, made 
strong characters, trained boys and girls for the 
work they were to do in the world. Whatever we 
have gained in these days of contrivances, we have 
lost some things which we could poorly spare. 
When the wise woman of the home, as wise as the 
woman of the Book of Proverbs, sat by her open 
fire or open window, and worked willingly with 
her hands, she was doing what no mechanism ever 
invented could attempt. Into her long seams 
which kept her cunning fingers busy she sewed 
long thoughts. She sewed much prayer and pur- 
pose into the stitches, which, like the temple of 
God, were full of strength and beauty. I verily 
believe that the sturdy character of the New Eng- 
land men and women of past generations was due 
in no small degree to the sewing of their mothers. 
I speak with utmost reverence, in memory of a 
home by the sea, when I remind you of that to 
which I think you will give assent, — the sacra- 
ment of the needle. 

But in any case, however fine the machinery 
may be, the wheels are nothing without the spirit. 
It is mind, after all, which invents the mechanism 



118 THE WHEELS AND THE SPIRIT 

and employs it. Machines do not produce machines, 
and perpetual motion remains undiscovered. The 
printing-press cannot think. The writing types 
are at the mercy of the mind ; they cannot make 
the thought, nor take the place of the thinker. 
The mind invents the mechanism. The mind em- 
ploys it, determines what shall be printed and 
written. The personality of the writer gives much 
of its value to the writing. We want to feel the 
man within the words, and to this end that which 
his fingers have wrought will be of service to us. 
A letter written by machinery may be well enough 
in ordering merchandise ; it is of less use for ex- 
pressing friendship or emotion. What John Ster- 
ling wrote to Carlyle was not overstated : " Your 
signature is not at the end of your letters only, but 
in every word you have written." In our school- 
days we repeated, with the admiration that was ex- 
pected of us, that " the pen is mightier than the 
sword." It is by no means true, save under very 
limited conditions ; nor is that what Lytton said, 
but this : — 

" Beneath the rule of men entirely great 
The pen is mightier than the sword." 

" Take away the sword ; 
States can he saved without it ; "bring the pen ! " 

This is obvious enough, yet it needs to be con- 
sidered. We have a natural but overweening 



THE WHEELS AND THE SPIRIT 119 

confidence in machinery. We carry this so far 
that in the language of political life we set a ma- 
chine to run a machine. Yet we know better than 
this, for we elect officers when we have established 
offices, well aware that however perfect may be the 
mechanism, a perfect man is needed for the best 
use of it. Hence, with all our confidence in it and 
in those who are using it, we find it necessary to 
furnish from the life of the people the added 
thought which is required. Thus we have in our 
government an Indian Department, administered 
by many men and at great cost ; but we have also 
scattered through our towns little associations to 
make sure that the governmental machinery is 
doing its work well. We try to incite those who 
are using it, and to improve the wheels which they 
are running. We have an elaborate system of 
civil service intrusted to men who are in honor 
held to see that it is honestly administered, but at 
the same time we have our private associations, 
our papers, and numberless lectures and essays, 
not only to make the wheels better, but to make 
sure that there shall be spirit enough in those to 
whom they are intrusted to see that the best work 
is done in the best way. One of our wisest man- 
ufacturers foresees the time when the wheels which 
have made much of the industry of New England 
will stop, because the Merrimac Eiver, losing its 



1-0 THE WHEELS AND THE SPIRIT 

forests, will lose the rains of heaven which it can 
now gather together and harness to the wheels of 

our factories. The wheels must have the constant 
force from above them. The need of maintaining 
the spirit need not be urged, although we do need 
to remind ourselves and others regarding it. Even 
public sentiment, with all the intricacies of its 
feeling and instincts, cannot be trusted to do what 
needs to be done for the community and for the 
nation, but must itself be taught and inspired by 
single men of lofty spirit, of bravery, of intense 
feeling, who can breathe into the public heart and 
public voice the spirit of a wise enterprise and 
advance. 

TTe recognize this principle of the spirit in the 
wheels ; we see it in nature. Thus when our Lord 
called the attention of his disciples to the lily by 
the roadside. He bade them mark not so much 
the form and texture of the flower as the spirit 
within, which gave it being and beauty, and He 
used it that by means of it God might secure the 
confidence of men in his continual care. So the 
stars in the heavens are not merely masses of 
nebulous dust condensed and made to shine : they 
are held in their places by the power which cre- 
ated them, led on their way by the fingers from 
which light passed into them ; and infinitely the 
finest thing in all the heavens is, not the stars, but 



THE WHEELS AND THE SPIRIT 121 

the spirit which inhabits them ; and nothing so 
fine has been said about them as that they declare 
the glory of God ; and no use so fine has been 
made of them as when the watchful shepherd 
invoked their spirit for the purifying and the 
governing of his own word and thought. It was 
a noble and beautiful thing when our master in 
science, with his pupils gathered around him at 
Penikese, before he spoke to them of the rocks, or 
opened his lips to give them any counsel, bade 
them lift their hearts to God in prayer, to feel the 
Spirit which ruled the world whose interpreter he 
was. 

We see the spirit in history, too. History is 
not the record of events, of the movement of men, 
the conquest of states ; history is the record of 
thought, of the spirit within the deeds of men, 
ruling and overruling for the working out of its 
own intent. The coming of the Pilgrims to our 
shores was not the sailing of a hundred men and 
women in a wretched ship. It was the movement 
of the divine thought. 

" The word of the Lord by night 
To the watching' Pilgrims came, 
As they sat by the seaside, 

And filled their hearts with flame." 

The vessel itself was a "poor, common-looking 
ship, hired by common charter-party for coined 



122 THE WHEELS AXD THE SPIRIT 

dollars : calked with mere oakum and tar ; pro- 
visioned with vulgarest biscuit and bacon ; " yet, 
"Thou little Mayflower hadst in tliee the life- 
spark of the largest Nation on our Earth." 

It is so in our later history. The War of the 
Revolution did not accomplish a mere change of 
rulers and the removal of the seat of government. 
It was the march of an idea ; of liberty working 
out its own freedom and gaining its ascendency 
through the men and armies which it employed. 
It was in the spirit, and for the spirit, that War- 
ren cried as he fell : " It is sweet to die for one's 
country ! " Our late war was the movement of the 
spirit of liberty and unity in the mechanism of 
armies and of governments, and it was of this 
that our own laureate cried exultantly : " 0, beau- 
tiful, my country ! " And again : " There is some- 
thing magnificent in having a country to love ! " 
When Guizot asked Mr. Lowell how long the 
American Republic will last, he made answer, — 
not saying as long as its rivers run, and its mines 
yield gold, — but thus : "As long as the princi- 
ples of its founders continue to be dominant." He 
saw, as any prophet must see, that a country can 
never be made or preserved by wheels, but that 
its life is in the spirit which employs them, and 
that so long as the spirit is brave and true, when 
it moves, the wheels will move ; when it is lifted 



THE WHEELS AND THE SPIRIT 123 

up from the earth, the wheels will be lifted up 
beside it, and that the spirit of the living creature 
gives to the wheels their strength. It is a good 
sign that in these times of ours we are rising to this 
thought. We have immense confidence in mecha- 
nism. We are learning to turn to the spirit, and 
of late we have come often to speak a word which 
a few years ago was rarely heard, or spoken only 
by some one out of sympathy with the methods of 
his age. I mean arbitration, the coming together 
of men and men, the meeting of nation and nation, 
not to determine their rights, settle their contro- 
versies, define their boundaries by strongly adjusted 
wheels, by armies and by navies, but by honorable 
thought, by the honest interchange of opinion, by 
right reasoning, and upright judgment. 

We have seen painfully of late the impotence of 
wheels in a great necessity, and the need of spirit. 
Europe has been heavily loaded with mechanism. 
The English, French, German, Russian, Austrian, 
Italian armies have tramped across the continent, 
and navies matching the armies have vexed all the 
seas. But when a nation, cruel and base, mur- 
dered helpless people because of their faith, there 
was not power enough in all the machinery of 
Europe to defend a man from his murderer, or to 
place a shield before a helpless child. The ma- 
chinery of the Powers, as for some reason they 



124 THE WHEELS AXD THE SPIEIT 

are termed, is huge and cumbersome, but it could 
not do its work. It could not maintain the right 
of good men to live, nor compel respect for com- 
mon law. The wheels kept up their grinding, but 
there was no grist. We could hear across the 
ocean the groaning and creaking of the engines ; 
but above it all were borne upon the air, even to 
our shores, the shrieks of men and women and the 
cries of babes. Legislation seemed to have " ex- 
hausted its mandate." Perhaps after a time the 
spirit may enter into the wheels and lift them up : 
the spirit of humanity and fellowship : the spirit 
of unselfishness and courage ; a spirit human, not 
national ; the spirit of God, the Lord of Sabaoth. 
Doubtless that spirit is there, and the time will 
come when it will assert its right to rule. Mech- 
anism has been well said to be like a glass bell 
through which we look, but under which we faint 
for lack of air. It is a good comparison. At last 
we shall shatter the glass with a blow, and the 
spirit will emerge, and begin its work. 

There is much in this hurried life of ours, 
among our inventions and discoveries, which as- 
sures us that we know the spirit, that we prize it, 
in our best moments depend upon it, and for great 
good seek its help. We strive to foster this by 
our schools and our churches. We believe that 
the increase of virtue and patriotism is the in- 



THE WHEELS AND THE SPIRIT 125 

crease of strength. We have more and more to 
consent to this, and to take it into all our life. 
Our minds go out beyond our petty interests, and 
the little domain which lies around our door, and 
we think, often with pride, sometimes with solici- 
tude, of the work that is before us ; for the spirit 
which brought the Pilgrims to these shores, and 
made the colonies into a nation, and made the 
Republic free, must be invoked and obeyed, if the 
work is to be completed, and the Republic is to be 
preserved and perfected. For the first time in the 
history of the world are men called upon to make 
a Republic such as this, bringing many nations 
into one nation, under one government, with one 
patriotism, and one virtue ; tearing up the sepa- 
rate flags, and weaving the strips into the banner 
of the Republic. For our work we need our 
wealth, our mines of silver and of gold, and all the 
treasures which are upon the earth and within it. 
We need railroads and factories and shops and 
banks, at the East and at the West, at the North 
and at the South. We need government and laws 
for the strong body, through which the strong 
spirit that from the beginning has been at work, 
and has made no serious mistake, may complete 
its task with vigor and in peace. We must give 
the national spirit everywhere, the spirit of light, 
of freedom, of life, the spirit of the Puritan and 



126 THE WHEELS AXD THE SPIBIT 

the Republic. How shall we do this but by re- 
ceiving the spirit and obeying it, every man for 
himself, here, where we live? We shall do this 
here and over all the land by our schools, which 
teach history and geography, good manners and 
high virtue. We must build churches every- 
where : not yet cathedrals, but log meeting-houses, 
till we can build better ; if not universities, school- 
houses for all the children of the people. The 
sources of spiritual strength which our fathers 
used are open to us : the heart turned toward God ; 
the spirit of prayer which ascends to heaven and 
brings the answer of wisdom and of strength ; the 
open Bible which every man can read for himself, 
gathering its lessons of courage and patience ; the 
Day of the Lord, with the mind released from 
work, that it may worship, and the soul resting 
content in the thought of the Eternal Love and 
Life of Him who loves the country as He loves 
those who made it ; who loves the country as He 
loves those who will inherit it. Our fathers 
wrought faithfully, and their work has one virtue 
which we admire, its stability. The wheels they 
used were not of modern make, but the spirit 
which was in them knows nothing of time and 
change. If we do not like their wheels, and we 
can readily improve upon them, we admire their 
spirit, and that which it has accomplished. 



THE WHEELS AND THE SPIRIT 127 

Thus do we stand in our place and consider our 
work and look along the years. By all means let 
us make our mechanism thorough, but by all 
means have our spirit divine. In the places of 
our government let the commandment of God 
bear sway. Let there be given to Him the obedi- 
ence which is his due. In the common life that we 
share as fellow-citizens let us secure and obey the 
spirit of the eternal strength. In the quiet of the 
home, with the heart tender and gentle, we may 
well nurture the sentiment which is our honor, 
and affection one for another ; toward the coun- 
try, patriotism ; toward God, piety. So may we 
do in our personal life, in the sanctuary of our 
home, in our villages and cities, in the states 
which make the nation ; living in the power of the 
spirit which moves among the wheels, and letting 
it rule the land. In view of this, in our gratitude 
and our hope, we can raise upon our heights the 
beacons which shall flash the light from hill to hill 
across the " kindling continent, 9 ' while we give 
praise and confidence and love and hope to our 
country. Then shall she attain unto her great- 
ness: 

" She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, 
She of the open soul and open door, 
With room about her hearth for all mankind." 



VIII 

THE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 

S. John xv. 8 



THE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 



The manna came directly from the sky; that 
manna always does. Our daily bread does not. 
When our Lord spoke of the branch and the vine, 
there were three working together for the fruit, — 
the husbandman, the vine, the branch. Or shall 
we say four, and name another quite as essential, 
the man who gathered the fruit ? If we transfer 
this to the spiritual interests which He had in mind, 
we have the Father, the Son whom He gave to the 
world, the men whom Christ drew about himself, 
and to whom He gave his life, and, finally, those 
who listened to the disciples and took from them 
the gift of God which it was their calling to bestow. 
It seems a long way from the Eternal in his heaven 
to the grapes plucked by a man's hand from the 
vine, but the way is unbroken. It is like a long 
river whose head-waters, gathered from the springs 
among the hills, flow down their course till they 
reach the sea into which men cast their nets and 
over which they sail their ships. The River of the 
Water of Life flows from the throne of God, but 



132 THE TLACE OF THE BRANCH 

men drink of it in the valleys of this world. Thus 
the fruit proceeds from the vine ; it is its life, 
changed into that which shall be refreshing to the 
world. 

This is the divine way of blessing the world. 
Many of the gifts of God are given immediately 
to men, are bestowed by the spirit of God upon 
the spirit of men. But in the ordinary gifts of 
his providence and of his grace, there is, commonly, 
the intervention of the man who is the branch. 
This is certainly not our way, for only to a limited 
extent have we consented to it now that it is ap- 
pointed for us. It is very difficult for men to feel 
that by the ordinance of God they are of constant 
and vital importance in the imparting of his bless- 
ings. It pleases God to give his Son. It pleases 
Christ to give his disciples, whom He has instructed 
and furnished and inspired for his work in the 
world. There is but one Incarnation of which it 
can be said that God is manifest in the flesh, and 
" He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 
But there are many indwellings in which the spirit 
who is God, abiding in the spirit who is man, 
speaks through his lips, works by his hands, and 
thus illustrates and conveys his truth and mercy 
to the world. 

The method of Christ's life as it has been given 
in the gospel makes this plain. " Ye have not 



THE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 133 

chosen me," He said, " but I have chosen you, and 
appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, 
and that your fruit should remain." He meant 
that his own life, in order to reach the world, 
should become the life of men and should be his 
and theirs, to be received by those to whom men 
carried it as the life of Christ. In this we are 
following a method which is entirely simple and 
reasonable, for man is himself spirit, and has the 
divine nature ; he is furnished with power by his 
Creator, he is endowed with knowledge and truth 
and life by Christ, to whom he looks as Master 
and Lord. He has in his measure the character 
of Christ, for he is a man forgiven through Him, 
and renewed by the spirit of truth ; he has dwell- 
ing in him the same Holy Spirit who descended 
upon his Lord as He stood in the waters of the 
Jordan ; and so far as it can be done he repeats in 
the world the life which his Master lived when He 
was seen of men, and has the same intent and pas- 
sion to glorify God upon the earth and to accom- 
plish the work which He has given him to do. 
Very real is the trust which is reposed in him, 
when He who is the Good Shepherd, and who has 
given his life for the sheep, intrusts his sheep and 
his lambs to the care of the man. But much more 
close is the relation in this similitude of the vine, 
wherein the vine ordains that the life which He is 



184 THE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 

giving to the world shall pass through the branch, 
shall be seen in its beauty wherever the branch 
reaches out. and shall be gathered by the hands of 
those who shall give thanks, not to the branch, 
but to the vine and the husbandman. Thus it is 
that God, who is the source of all life, gives the 
blessings of life to the world of men whom He has 
made, and whom He calls his children. It is not 
difficult, then, to see why our Lord, in his solemn 
account of the great day which is to come, elevates 
into a sacrament the giving of a cup of water or 
a piece of bread, the visit to a prison, the solace 
of a stranger ; for it would seem to be one man who 
does all the things which are there commended. 
The glory of the acts is this, that they are God's 
acts ; that these are his gifts, given in his spirit ; 
that they are Christ's blessings, bestowed upon 
those whom Christ came to save ; that they are 
therefore divine, and are therefore the witness to 
the divine life in men. Such deeds, given in the 
spirit of God to those who are the friends of 
Christ, — how can they be less than divine, or be 
unworthy of recognition when the summing-up of 
life has come ? 

It is very evident that God must in a way like 
this give his blessing to men ; or, at least, that this 
is the simplest and kindest way. We could not 
bear the sight of Jehovah upon our streets. Our 



THE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 135 

eyes would be blinded with excess of light, nor 
should we be able to do our daily work, and live in 
calmness, if our homes were flooded with the radi- 
ance of Him whom no man hath seen at any time, 
nor can see; of whom it was written in words 
which we readily believe : " There shall no man 
see me and live." Nor could we bear the presence 
of Christ himself, if He were here in the fullness 
of his light, for He was the effulgence of his 
Father's glory. When three men saw the bright- 
ness of his face, and the gleaming of his garments 
upon the mount, they were unwilling to go down 
again into the world that needed them ; they would 
fain set up tents and leave the world without them- 
selves, and without Him. Then, if He were here, 
still blessing men as of old, and in the old way, how 
could we be quiet ? He might be at Washington, 
or at Jerusalem, and how could we rest, how could 
we work, if He were so near, and yet so remote ; 
and how desolate would seem all the places where 
He was not ! He said truly, and we can see that 
it was truly, " It is expedient that I should go 
away," for thus would He give to the world his 
presence in all places, and on every day ; as even 
now, wherever there is the man in whom He lives, 
through whom He speaks, in whom He suffers, 
there He may be found. Wherever He gives 
others his own grace, as many as touch them are 



THE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 

made whole, because they touch Him. We do nor 

need to gv> afar to seek Him. to c 

course with his life, to feel his spirit. It is 

MUM men become like Him. and we see the like- 
B, and men are like pictures in a book, repre- 
sentations of that is far away: bu: 
He is himself in the men. and his life :- "oe: 
their life, and his spirit rules their spirit. TVe 
shrink back from this. We are not worthy of 
such honor. We cannot bear so great a trust. 
We are unwilling that men who are hungry and 
thirsty should look to us for the gift of God. But 
I said that we never thought to have it so. He 
told us. in many ways, that this was his choice. 
not ours : and if He has chosen thus to make use 
of us. who are we that we should refuse, or plead 
our unworthiness. or consent to our timidity, or 
fail to listen to the divine calling given to those 
who even now in the low places of the world lift up 
their eyes to heaven and say •* Our Father " ? I 
am sure that we can see how very much pleasanter 
it is. how much more generous, how much m 
the kindness of Him who loves all his child: - 
delights, not merely to give to men wh 
able to receive, but to give to men what they ; 
able to bestow, that He advances us. because He 
~::e glory of taking, even from Hie 

i :ed hands, the unsearchable riches of Christ. 



THE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 137 

to that glory of which Christ himself bore witness 
in the words which we hear long after the gospel 
has been spoken, " It is more blessed to give than 
to receive." The place of the branch is indeed 
the place of receiving, for the life of the vine 
flows into it ; but the place of the branch is the 
place of giving, for the divine life flows from it 
into fruit which makes glad the heart of man. It 
is not that we are simply used, that we are like the 
channel through which the river flows, never con- 
senting to give it a path to the sea, or are merely 
consenting to the honor of such service ; but that 
all our power, in all its liberty, our highest facul- 
ties in their noblest employ, are engaged in this 
transmitting of the blessing of God. The will of 
God enters into our will, which welcomes it, and 
gives to it a freeman's liberty, and wills to do the 
will of God. It flows into our affections, which 
rejoice to be quickened and purified by its presence, 
and which give themselves and the love of God 
into ministries for beautifying the earth. It flows 
into all our heart, into all our life, informing, enno- 
bling, enabling, making our liberty real in the 
added strength it gives to it, making it blessed in 
the divine grace with which it inspires it for the 
fulfillment of its highest aspirations, for the glo- 
rifying of its noblest thought. 

I wish that we might come to see this. I wish 



138 THE PLACE OF THE BBANCH 

very much that we all might come to know and 
confess how magnificent a thing it is to live, to 
bear the image and likeness of God, to have his 
life our life, his thought our thought, to be in his 
wisdom and by his decree indispensable to his in- 
tent of love, to his eternal desire to bless the world. 
I know how hard it is to feel it; even while I 
speak the words to you my own heart comes far, 
very far, from knowing how true they are, how 
true they must be, how sincere is their disclosure 
of the Eternal Love ; how divine, immortal, is the 
life to which they lead us. But let us not in all 
our distrust and with all our humility oppose our- 
selves to the heart of the Eternal which is " most 
wonderfully kind," or fail to accept the appoint- 
ment of his compassion and his love who gave his 
Son from heaven, and who gives his heavenly Son 
to the world through our lives. Oh, that we had 
faith enough, humility enough, aspiration enough, 
to read into our thoughts and to write over our 
hearts and upon our lips the words of infinite 
assurance, " I am the vine, ye are the branches ; 
herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much 
fruit ; and so shall ye be my disciples ! " 

I think we can all feel the delight, the inex- 
pressible advantage, of thus finding the goodness 
of God diffused among men who enjoy it them- 
selves, and are able to scatter it upon the air, and 



THE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 139 

to make it everywhere the blessing of men. Sup- 
pose there were far away some immense tree, only 
one in all the world and that remote from men, 
bearing roses of marvelous beauty and of surpass- 
ing fragrance, and that every year some ship com- 
ing from the distant shore should bring to us the 
flowers. How we should hasten to the pier, watch 
for the coming vessel, take the things of beauty, 
examine them, enjoy them, treasure them ! What 
a delight it would be, and what a privilege, to live 
where they might come to us! But think how 
much better is that common blessing so familiar 
to us, coming now to be received again, as " the 
miracle of spring" becomes the daily beauty of 
the summer, when every one, the poor man and the 
child, can have the roses growing under his own 
window, can watch the first appearing of the leaves, 
can see the buds form themselves, and expand and 
open, and put forth the heralds of their beauty, 
and slowly burst into the roses which we may look 
upon as they grow, which we may take into our 
hands, which we may carry to the sick, which we 
can place in the guest-chamber to give the welcome 
of beauty to a coming friend. Splendid it might 
be and glorious, the one rose-tree in the heart of 
India; but more glorious still, and abounding in 
all which makes us happier, more full of joy in the 
good gift, are the countless roses which keep their 
sweetness beside our door. 



140 TEE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 

But there are other advantages that might be 
mentioned here. By this method of giving the 
blessing through the vine, and the blessing of the 
vine through many branches, the fruit is found in 
many places and at all times, and where the bless- 
ings of God come to men through men, it makes 
them more real to us, perhaps easier to take them 
because the hand of a neighbor is reached out to us. 
Then those who bring the blessings to us are those 
who have made proof of them. They bring to us 
comfort which they have themselves felt. They 
stand as witnesses to the transforming and sustain- 
ing power of the truth they preach to us. They 
illustrate in their own lives and out of their own 
experience that which evidently our like necessity 
requires and can enjoy. They teach us the grace 
of prayer by praying themselves. They show us 
faith by being faithful. They make us know the 
power of the spirit of God by living in the power 
of the spirit. They are living witnesses, wearing 
worthily the name which the ascending Lord gave 
to men that day when He was to ascend from 
Olivet, saying, " Ye shall be witnesses unto me." 

There is another advantage to be noticed of 
which we are inclined to make less account, but 
which we do not quite forget, and which it is surely 
like the good Lord who loves us all constantly to 
remember, and that is the great advantage it is to 



THE PLACE OF THE BBANCH 141 

us to carry to the world the gift of God. What 
can be purer delight than to stand between his 
infinite compassion and the world toward which 
He is compassionate, and to take from his hands, 
which overflow with goodness, the goodness He 
would give to those He loves ? It is not merely 
comfort or sympathy. The world is not a hospital, 
and life is not a walk through its wards with med- 
icine in our hands. It is a place where the sick 
are, and the poor, and the sad, and it is our priv- 
ilege to carry to them the solace of God ; but the 
world is quite as really and more largely a gymna- 
sium where we can set all our powers in exercise, 
and train ourselves until we become athletes, with 
a vigorous faith, an exultant hope, and a charity 
that never can be tired. For our own growth in 
all that is worthy of us, for the enlargement of 
our manhood, for the expansion of our own hearts, 
do we need what is so generously granted us, the 
opportunity in God's name to be God's ministers 
of his mercy to the world. The fruitful branch 
has not merely the joy of fruitage as a memory or 
a present consciousness, but the confidence that 
bearing fruit is but the prelude to bearing more 
fruit, and that the delight of the life which is ap- 
pointed us is the certain anticipation of more life 
and more delight which are close at hand. 

We ought to notice that it is a very great honor 



1-42 77//: PLACE OF THE BRANCH 

that God rives when He brings to ns his strong 
commandments which are not trivial wishes for 
feeble men. an easy path for timid feet, a small 
task for small minds, but are great commandments, 
sublime, calling for highest virtue, yet bidding us 
do nothing which is not possible, and to do those 
things which shall make us most like Himself. In 
these opportunities for service a like honor comes 
to us. We are not called to little things, chance 
gifts, the teaching of things that we have studied 
out, to the giving of that which our unskilled fingers 
have made. We are first empowered with divine 
life, truth, energy, and then permitted to give to 
men great gifts which shall make them think of the 
great Giver. The form of the gift may be small, 
the deed of helpfulness may be in some common 
way, but nothing is small or common which helps 
men to live a truer life in a finer spirit. Graciously 
sublime is that teaching of our Lord which sounds 
to us like duty, but to the open eye looks like 
glory : " Let your light so shine before men that 
they may see your good works and glorify your 
Father which is in heaven." But why should we 
give the glory to Him ? Because the good works 
are his ; it is the life of the vine which by the 
branch becomes the grape. 

It is noticed that in all this there is no descrip- 
tion of the fruit. No description is needed. God 



THE PLACE OF THE BBANCH 143 

knows well what He will do. He comes with his 
own purpose to us. We learn it from Him. We 
fulfill it. The vine knows how to bear grapes, and 
it is the knowledge of the vine that the branch 
uses. Yet we are well able to see as we look at 
the fruitful life of Christ in the world, what the 
fruit is. We see it at Nazareth, when He tells 
what He will do. We hear it when He sends the 
word of confidence to his forerunner who is in 
prison. We find it in that life so full of benefi- 
cence when words of blessing fell from his lips, 
and strength from his hands, when light flashed 
from the ends of his fingers, and healing was 
plucked from the border of his robe ; and in the 
redeeming purpose which He steadily declared, 
which led him to Jerusalem and Gethsemane and 
Calvary. That which He did, being here, He 
would still be doing and completing; only now 
He has ascended, and will stand in those He has 
appointed in his place. "I am the vine, ye are 
the branches," He said. 

Have we learned this ? Not all of us. Few of 
us perfectly. Hence it is that the world is still so 
poor, so blind and sorrowful. We believe in Him 
and would serve Him. We look upon the world 
and pity it, but we do not readily keep our faith 
and love together. One of the wisest of our Har- 
vard professors said to me, " There are plenty of 



14-4 THE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 

students who know two and two, but there are few 
students who know that two and two make four ; " 
that is, who are able to combine the different 
parts of their knowledge, to see the principles of 
life in history, and the meaning of history in the 
principles which it embodies. With all good in- 
tentions we may fail in that way, praying to God 
and worshiping Him as if the world were not given 
into our keeping, or trying to keep the world as 
if it were not God who had intrusted it to us. If 
now we can see that as branches the vine depends 
upon us, and if we can see that men are looking 
to us, we shall be incited to turn the life of God 
into fruit, that He may be served, and to give the 
fruit to men that their wants may be regarded. 
We have no call to be anxious for the world, but 
to be diligent in our care for it. God has never 
forsaken the world. Why should He not care for 
it ? Shall we stand at one side, then, and let Him 
do his work? Nay, stand at two sides, and let 
Him do his work. The branch has two extremi- 
ties. Let us cling on the one side to the Lord 
whom we trust and serve, and take abundant life 
from Him, and then bear it on to those whom we 
can reach, uniting thus our fidelity to Him who 
has appointed us with our charity for those who 
are given to our care. The disciples followed 
Christ, and believed in Him. They pitied the 



THE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 145 

hungry multitude, and would have had them sent 
to the villages to buy bread. Christ called upon 
them not to separate what He had joined together ; 
to hold fast their faith in Him and their pity for 
the people ; and while like branches they reached 
out to the multitude seated upon the grass, He 
walked with them, and by their hands made the 
scanty loaves feed the waiting thousands. 

Oh, friends, let us know our calling and accept 
it ! Pray and work, pray for the poor as we do, 
but never forget to pray for ourselves. Pray for 
those who need our help, to Him whose help we 
need. We pray much for others. It is well. 
Suppose for a day or two we give the burden of 
our prayers to petitions for ourselves ; not praying 
immediately that the people may pluck grapes, but 
praying immediately that we may give the people 
grapes which they can pluck. Pray that there 
may be no hungry children in the world, but pause 
long enough to carry out the bread we have, or to 
get more bread that we may carry out. Pray that 
the kingdom of God may come, but meanwhile see 
that no missionary is recalled and no missionary 
school is closed. The world will want but little 
so soon as we have taken much, and if we are 
faithful in receiving, the world will be blessed in 
receiving also. Give what you have is a prudent 
rule ; but have what you can give is a true law for 
ourselves and for the world. 



146 THE PLACE OF THE BRANCH 

May I tell you now a little thing that came to 
me last night ? I had been thinking all the week 
upon this which I have said, and it seemed to need 
clearness in my thought ; and so, when Saturday- 
was over, a long and weary day, I sat before a 
blackened hearth. Then a boy, standing for one 
who brings a divine life, laid logs of wood one 
upon another, and in some mysterious way a fire 
sprang up among them. It flowed over them, and 
made them glow in splendor, and they entered into 
it all, and crackled, and snapped their fingers in 
delight; and the fire warmed them to the heart, 
and then they gave out the warmth, and I felt it 
who sat before them, and the whole room felt it. 
The fire rose up between the logs leaping and 
dancing, and sending out its light to illumine the 
room, and making the evening air within bright 
and warm. I wondered whether it was the fire 
that made the wood burn, or the wood that made 
the fire burn, and I could not wait to find out. 
But that which I had been thinking about, and 
waiting for, came to me in the simple parable of 
fire and wood. For thus it is the life of God 
comes to us, brightening our life, warming our 
heart, sending forth its own brightness in ours, 
and taking us up into its own thought and intent ; 
living in us, letting us live in it, till the world is 
helped to God's life and ours, our life and God's, 



THE PLACE OF THE BBANCH 147 

and no one thinks to part the two. Do not lay a 
heavy hand on my frail analogy. I know how 
fragile it is. It came to me when I needed it, 
therefore I tell it here. Can we let the divine life 
come to us, s ^ us on fire, enshroud us with its 
glory? Can we consent that it shall seem to con- 
sume us, while it takes our life into itself, and as- 
cending bears it into the Eternal Life and Light ? 



IX 

THE STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 

Psalm cxxii. 



THE STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND 
CHURCH 



On the third day of October, 1635, the ship 
Defence, of London, arrived at Boston. It had 
been a "longsome voyage" of nearly two months, 
for the ship was " very rotten and unfit for such a 
voyage," and at the first storm began to leak badly, 
so that the passengers thought they might have to 
turn back. Among her passengers was a young 
Puritan minister who had been driven out of 
England, with his wife and young child. They 
were welcomed by many friends, and entertained 
for a day or two, and then they crossed the river 
to Newtown. It happened just at that time that 
many of the settlers of this village were preparing 
to remove to Connecticut. This young minister, 
Thomas Shepard, and his friends, numbering about 
sixty persons, decided to remain until they could 
find a better place, and a few of the former settlers, 
reluctant to remove, remained with them. Among 
these was John Bridge, a man prominent in the 
affairs of the town, whose services have recently 



152 STOBT OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 

been recognised in a statue of bronze. He was 

among those who had invited Shepard to come to 

the New World, and had provided a plaee for him. 
In the following February these new comers desired 
to be properly organized as a church. They gained 

the approbation of the magistrates, and invited the 
neighboring churches to be present and to assist 
"in constituting their body." With carefulness 
and dignity, with regard for order, and an ample 
sense of the fitness of things, they formed the new 
church, following in their thought the simple 
methods of the New Testament. The leading 
members were men of learning, high character, and 
exalted purpose, who had consented to become 
exiles that they might enjoy the religious liberty 
which was to them more than comfort and life. 
They entered into a solemn covenant whereby they 
promised to walk in all their ways according to the 
rules of the gospel, " and in mutual love and respect 
each to other, so near as God shall give us grace."' 
They were few in number, perhaps only seven, for 
it was considered that seven was a convenient 
number for a church. Thus the beginnine was 
made. It was great in its intent and in its results. 
It was an entire church : independent, in that there 
was no human authority over it ; Congregational, in 
that it was in fellowship with all the churches along 
the Xew England coast. Clearly, the church was 



STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 153 

not the house in which it worshiped. It did not 
include those of the company who had not entered 
into covenant. It did not include any of the other 
villagers, though they might be connected with it 
in its services, and aid in meeting its expenses. 
The church was those men and women, and only 
those, who had made covenant one with another 
in the sight of God. In this integrity it was to 
remain. 

The wife of the young minister had encouraged 
him to leave his own country and seek another 
beyond the sea. His own account of her influence 
is full of meaning : " My dear wife did much long 
to see me settled there in peace, and so put me on 
to it." The name of Margaret Shepard deserves 
the honor with which it is regarded. Her husband's 
testimony is all that she could desire : " When the 
Lord had fitted a wife for me he then gave me 
her, who was a most sweet, humble woman, full of 
Christ, and a very discerning Christian; a wife 
who was most incomparably loving to me and every 
way amiable and holy, and endued with a very 
sweet spirit of prayer." ..." Thus did I marry 
the best and fittest woman in the world unto me." 
The voyage had been a very hard one for the young 
Yorkshire mother. In one of the many storms, the 
husband writes, "my dear wife took such a cold 
and got such weakness as that she fell into a con.- 



154 STOEY OF A NEW ENGLAND CIIUBCH 

sumption, of which she afterward died ; and also 
the Lord preserved her with the child in her arms 
from imminent and apparent death, for by the 
shaking of the ship in a violent storm her head was 
pitched against an iron bolt and the Lord miracu- 
lously preserved the child and recovered my wife. 
This was a great affliction to me, and was a cause 
of many sad thoughts in the ship how to behave 
myself when I came to New England." We must 
allow the sorrowing minister to continue the story 
of his wife. A fortnight after the formation of the 
church, " my dear wife Margaret died, being first 
received into church fellowship, which as she much 
longed for so the Lord did so sweeten it unto her, 
that she was hereby exceedingly cheered and com- 
forted with the sense of God's love, which continued 
until her last gasp." 

We can have no better waymarks for the story 
we are relating than the series of meeting-houses in 
which the church had its home. The first was one 
which it had taken from the earlier settlers. It 
stood by the side of the river, and it was a small 
house, probably of logs, but was dignified with a 
bell. It could not have been humbler than the 
first meeting-house in Boston, which had mud walls 
and a thatched roof. It was a small house, but it 
was the home of great men and great deeds. At 
the organization of the church we must imagine the 



STOBY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 155 

presence of the two Winthrops, and Harry Vane, 
Dudley and Haynes, Cotton and Wilson, Hooker 
and Mather ; and among the members of the church 
were men of prominence in the colony. The humble 
structure contented men who had left the stately 
churches of England that they might enjoy freedom 
of thought and speech. "A wilderness is sweet 
with liberty." The house was the scene of large 
events. Dates are of importance here. It was in 
February that the church was formed. In October 
of the same year the General Court passed an order, 
" To give Four Hundred Pounds towards a School 
or College." In 1637, the Court appointed twelve 
eminent men "to take order for a College at 
Newtown." Thomas Shepard was one of the twelve, 
and it is given as a reason for erecting the college 
in Newtown that this was " place very pleasant and 
accommodate," and then " under the orthodox and 
soul-flourishing ministry of Mr. Thomas Shepard." 
In 1638, the place was called Cambridge, because 
the college was here, and nearly all the men who 
were interested in it had been trained on the banks 
of the Cam. In that year, 1638, John Harvard 
died, bequeathing his library and one half of his 
property to the young college. The amount was 
nearly double the appropriation made by the 
General Court. That Massachusetts Assembly, 
presided over by Harry Vane, has been said to be 



156 STOBY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 

"the first body in which the people, by their 
representatives, ever gave their own money to found 
a place of education." It was fitting that it should 
bear the name of Harvard and that his statue, the 
gift of John Bridge, a deacon of the church,* should 
stand among the University buildings. The tribute 
of Shepard to Harvard is a biography : " This man 
was a scholar and pious in his life and enlarged 
toward the country and the good of it in life and 
death." Both men were of Emmanuel College, 
where the Puritan influence was strong and bold ; 
both felt the spirit of their time and their place, 
which they bore with them over the sea and 
embodied in the new church and the new college. 
No one knows the exact burial-place of either of 
the men, but each has a nobler monument. In 1642 
the first college Commencement was held in the log 
meeting-house. The class was small. In 1646 but 
nine men were graduated, and in 1686 but seven. 
A church of seven members was not small by 
comparison, and the numbers were speedily and 
steadily enlarged. In 1648 the Cambridge plat- 
form of church discipline was framed by a synod 
assembled in the same meeting-house, and this 
became the basis for the churches of the colony. 
The small church, in the small house, preserved 
with dignity the ordinances of religion. The 
members of the church bore their part in all the 



STOEY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 157 

affairs of the town and made with those who did 
not enter into their covenant the community of 
common interests and a common life. It was a 
wonderful advantage to church and town that the 
first citizen was this young minister. His life had 
been a troubled one, but its troubles enhanced its 
power. His biographers well-nigh exhaust the 
language in their attempts to describe him. They 
present him as " a poor, weak, pale-complexioned 
man," but again as " the holy, heavenly, sweet, 
affecting and soul-ravishing minister ; " " this soul- 
melting preacher." He was " that gracious, sweet, 
heavenly-minded and soul-ravishing minister, in 
whose soul the Lord shed abroad his love so 
abundantly that thousands of souls have cause to. 
bless God for him." One of the college students 
has recorded the impression made upon him by the 
godly minister to whom he listened: "Unless it 
had been four years living in heaven, I know not 
how I could have more cause to bless God with 
wonder, than for those four years." He was a 
scholar who carried his entire learning and ability 
into his work. We have his sermons still, and they 
are good reading, even now. With his opinions 
few would now entirely agree, but to the principles 
upon which they were based, and the spirit with 
which they were inspired, thoughtful men w T ill pay 
reverence. Some one has made the computation 



158 s 

that in : upon the Religious Affections, 

Jonathan Edwards, more than half the . :a- 

sh paid. I [> v-; - 
pithy . 5. I v.-:-;: ;ha: I c 

of them. Thus he illustrates the wealth of the 
poor man who is united to Christ : " A woman that 
is matched to a prince may have never a penny in 
her purse, and yet she reioieeth that her husband 
:h it." I must add this. " Mariners long to be 
on shore : but before they come there they would 
not venture in a mist, but see land first : so should 
we desire the Lord in the land of the living. It is 
the honor of a Christian to be ripe for death 
betimes, yet still before he is ripe he is not to desire 
it. Children that will be up before it is day must 
be whipped : a rod is most fit for them ; stay till it 
is day." His preparation for preaching furnishes 
:, eood example for the preachers of later times. 
It is said that he always finished his preparation 
forthr ".-._"":: "" : dock on Saturday afternoon. 

Minting " that God would curse that man's labors 
goes lumbering up and down the world all the 
:u:l then upon Saturday afternoon goes into 
his study, when, as God knows, that time were little 
enough to pray in and weep in and get his he: rt 
into a frame fit for the approaching Sabbath." 
TTe cannot overestimate the such a man 

to the new communitv. nor can we trace what we 



STOBY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 159 

cannot fail to acknowledge, the benefit which for 
many generations the town held as an inheritance 
from him. 

In 1637, he married Joanna, the eldest daughter 
of his friend, Thomas Hooker. The husband's 
record is artless and affectionate : " She lived 
almost nine years with me, and was the comfort of 
my life to me." Afterward he married Margaret 
Boradel, who would doubtless have gained from 
him a similar affectionate testimony had he lived 
to make a record of her excellence ; but in 1649, 
on the 25th of August, he made his will and com- 
mitted his soul to God. He had prepared himself 
for the hour of his departure. " As to myself," he 
said, " I can say three things : that the study of 
every sermon cost me tears ; that before I preached 
a sermon I got good by it myself; and that I 
always went up into the pulpit as if I were to 
give up my account to my Master." He was natu- 
rally solicitous for the church in which he had 
invested his life. When he heard that Jonathan 
Mitchel, a graduate of the college, had gained the 
favor of the people, he was content. To the 
younger minister, he said that " this was the place 
where he should, by right, be all the rest of his 
days." He asked some of the people " how Mr. 
MitcheFs first sermon was approved among them. 
They told him very well. Then, said he, my work 
is done." In a few days he was at rest. 



160 STOUT OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 

"His name and office sweetly did agree ; 
Shepard, by name, and in his ministry." 

Then the church called the man who had been 
approved to be its minister. He came to be known 
as the " matchless Mitchel." He was an over-hard 
student, it is said. These words are preserved, 
given to one who sought his counsel : " My serious 
advice to you is, that you keep out of company, as 
far as Christianity and civility will give you leave ; 
take it from me ! the time spent in your study you 
will generally find spent the most profitably, com- 
fortably, and accountably." " The College was 
nearer unto his heart than it was to his house, 
though next adjoining to it." So great was the 
esteem in which he was held that President Mather 
thus advised the students : " Say each of you, 
Mitchel shall be the example whom I will imitate." 
Eichard Baxter said of him " that if there could 
be convened an (Ecumenical council of the whole 
Christian world, that man would be worthy to be 
the Moderator of it." 

He was a thorough successor. Not only did he 
become the minister of the church and the tenant 
of the parsonage, but he became also the husband 
of the widow. He had intended to marry Sarah 
Cotton, a daughter of the great divine, who readily 
gave his consent. " But the immature death of 
that hopeful young gentlewoman " prevented " so 



STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 161 

desirable a match." Then he turned to the young 
gentlewoman who had been so lately bereaved. 
The students celebrated the marriage with epitha- 
lamiums ; and upon the ancient steward's book is 
an entry in Mitchel's account whereby he is debtor 
" by commones and sisinges and a super on his 
weedinge night." 

The little meeting-house had become endeared to 
the church as its home for fourteen years, and it 
was pleasant, as they thought of it, to recall the 
words of the New Testament, which truly described 
it as " a place by the river-side where prayer was 
wont to be made." But the time had come when 
the church must move. It had been an enterpris- 
ing church. Not content with the sound of its 
bell, it sent out a man with a drum to call the peo- 
ple. Edward Johnson's story has come down to 
us, of his wandering out from Charlestown till he 
came to a large plain where he heard the sound of 
a drum. He asked a man whom he met what the 
drum meant, and was told that it was to call the 
people to Mr. Shepard's meeting-house. From 
curiosity, or perhaps from the fame of the preacher, 
he found his way to the house, where he stayed 
until the pulpit-glass was turned up twice, and he 
was " metamorphosed, and was fain to hang down 
his head lest his watery eyes should blab abroad 
the secret conjunction of his affections." The 



162 STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 

result was that he resolved to live and die with the 
ministers of New England. 

A church with so much enterprise must advance 
with the town in which it lived. So it moved up 
to the college, and there, within wiiat is now the 
college yard, on Watch-house Hill, the second 
meeting-house was erected. There Mitchells minis- 
try was passed and the ministry of Urian Oakes, 
at once the minister of the church and the president 
of the college. He was a faithful man, learned 
and unwearied in the abundant services to wilieh 
he was called. But at length it became necessary 
that he should be assisted, and Mr. Nathaniel 
Gookin, of a family famous in the early annals of 
the town, received a call " to be helpful in the 
ministry in order to be called to office in time 
convenient." There began the long ministry of 
William Brattle, of another prominent family. 

It may be well, perhaps, to look for a moment 
into one of those early meeting-houses. We should 
find a plain room, divided by a central passage, 
the men upon one side, and the women upon the 
other. If it were in the very early days, not un- 
likely some of the men would have carnal weapons. 
A little later, as the church became able, the 
house was improved according to the custom of 
the times. The pulpit was an elaborate structure, 
with a sounding-board, and the elders and the 



STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 163 

deacons sat under it, facing the congregation. The 
boys had a place by themselves, with a tithing-man 
to assist them to good behavior. In 1666, Thomas 
Fox " is ordered to look to the youth in time of 
public worship." At first the house had benches ; 
afterward a space upon the floor was allotted to 
one who wished it, and there he erected a pit or 
pew, which he was to keep in repair, and he was 
to "maintain all the glass against it." When 
there was no such private arrangement seats were 
assigned to the people according to their rank, or 
property, or age. The proper length for a sermon 
was an hour, although upon occasions the preacher 
might " take another glass," as it was facetiously 
described, and for his convenience, a well-regulated 
hour-glass was provided. ' Every Sabbath afternoon, 
there was a contribution, when the people passed 
up to the deacons' seats with their offerings. They 
went with suitable decorum. The magistrates and 
chief gentlemen went first, then the elders, then 
all the congregation of men, and most of them that 
were not of the church, all single persons, widows 
and women in absence of their husbands. Money 
and papers were dropped into a box; any other 
chattel was set down before the deacons. The 
stranger's money was often regarded by the clergy- 
man as his perquisite. His salary was paid from 
the voluntary contribution, at first, but afterwards 



164 STOEY OF A XEW EXGLAXL CHURCH 

by ' Mr. Shepard's salary is given as 

:ity pounds, which was among the largest of 
the times. Marriage was performed before a 
magistrate. TVinthrop mentions a great marriage 
in Boston, when the bridegroom invited his minis- 
ter to preach, but the magistrate sent word to him 
to forbear. The ministers were usually present at 
a burial, but nothing was read and no sermon was 
made. Funerals were somewhat expensive, espe- 
cially when a person of note was buried. This 
became more exacting as life became more luxuri- 
ous. In 1768. there is a record of a burial in 
Ipswich, when the bearers were furnished with 
gold rings, and the attending ministers received 
eighteen pairs of white leather gloves. At length 
an act was passed to retrench these extraordinary 
expenses. 

Fifty years passed on. and the church in Cam- 
bridge erected its third house of worship on the 
same place in the college yard : and the college. 
that year. 1706. graduated seven men. Fifty 
years later the church erected its fourth meeting- 
house, and in the same place : and that year there 
were twenty-five graduates. All things were in- 
creasing. This house was more stately than the 
others. The college gave one seventh part of the 
t of erecting it and keeping it in repair, and 
thus secured privileges for its officers and students. 



STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 165 

The connection of the church and the college, 
under a different arrangement, has continued until 
this time. That was a distinguished house. Presi- 
dent Quincy said of it after it was removed, " In 
this edifice all the public Commencements and 
solemn inaugurations, during more than seventy- 
years, were celebrated ; and no building in Massa- 
chusetts can compare with it in the number of dis- 
tinguished men who at different times have been 
assembled within its walls." Washington and his 
companions in arms worshiped there, and there 
Lafayette was welcomed " on his triumphal visit to 
the United States." There was the latter half of 
the long pastorate of Nathaniel Appleton which 
has been the despair of his successors ; for who 
can hope to be the minister of one people for sixty- 
six years ? It seems almost unkind that he should 
have held so long the monopoly of the position. 
But the people were content. He was well es- 
teemed, and many traces of his vigilance remain. 
The written record of his labors comprises little 
more than lists of persons baptized, married, and 
received into the church. But he was studious in 
his care for the lands belonging to the church and 
congregation, and devised a plan for enlarging, by 
means of them, the revenues of the parish. He 
received a goodly portion of his salary in the gifts 
of the people. We have the record of loads of 



166 STOBY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHUBCH 

wood that were brought to him, after what he 
terms " a good and laudable custom," that had 
been dead before Mr. Brattle's death, but had 
afterward been revived. The list in Mr. Brattle's 
time shows the simplicity of the life of the town 
and church. Goody Gove brought a pound of 
butter, Dr. Oliver, " a line Pork," but Sarah Fer- 
guson presented a pig, which, however, was valued 
at threepence less than Dr. Oliver's section, which 
gives some hint of the dimensions of the pig. 
Then there are " 2 powthering Tubs," a tub of salt 
beef, and wine, and what is written as " Bear," but 
was in all probability another commodity. Mr. 
Appleton's salary had been a hundred pounds, yet 
in 1778 it was six hundred pounds. In '83, it had 
risen to two thousand and twenty-five pounds. 
There is history between these payments. Great 
things had been done between '77 and '83. The 
large salary was nearly all in paper currency, with 
only a pittance of silver. The good man was con- 
strained to take what the people were obliged to 
give. But there is a touching pathos in the simple 
statement which remains upon the church books, 
in his own handwriting, as he took his paper bills 
and consented to call them money, " although they 
are greatly depreciated." The Eevolution had 
come ; the colonies had become a republic, and we 
know what must have been prominent in the minds 



STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 167 

of minister and people, the theme of many a ser- 
mon, the burden of many a prayer, the material 
for many anxious conversations along the streets 
and in the homes, and at last the spirit of the 
rejoicing which burst into song and rose into dox- 
ology. 

But while this meeting-house was the home of 
the people, there befell the church a greater event 
than had entered into its history during the two 
centuries which were gone. In that house was the 
ministry of a man who deserved the reverence with 
which he was regarded. As a scholar he held to 
the principles which had ruled the church life from 
the beginning, and he preached the truth as it had 
been proclaimed in four meeting-houses, and illus- 
trated and adorned it in his own walk and conver- 
sation. The early part of the century was a period 
of division in many New England churches by 
reason of new opinions which had come in, and 
later than in most places the separation came to 
this church, and to those who were in alliance with 
it, who shared in the cost of its services, and were 
as the shell to the kernel, or the body to the spirit. 
They were the town, or that portion of the town, 
whose religious home was in this sanctuary. A 
majority of the parish, as it was termed, were in 
favor of the new opinions, and from his office the 
minister of the parish was dismissed. About two 



168 STOBY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 
thirds of the church and one half of the con<rre<ra- 

o o 

tion adhered to him. It was very hard for this 
saintly man who had been the minister of church 
and of parish for thirty-seven years. He was sixty- 
six years old, and his long life had been marked 
with fidelity and devotion which no one ques- 
tioned. A Sabbath day came when the minister 
and the deacons and the church went their accus- 
tomed way to the meeting-house, to find it closed 
against them. It was hard for the sixty persons 
who were in sympathy with the minister to leave 
for this cause the house which had been the home 
of their fathers. For the church to stand with the 
minister was by the decree of the Court the relin- 
quishment of the civil rights which belonged to it 
in its connection with the parish, and of the pre- 
cious Communion service, and the money which it 
had gathered and kept for charity. The ecclesias- 
tical rights of the church were of course retained. 
With heavy hearts the church and the minister 
with his deacons turned away from their home. It 
was like them to turn away, for they inherited the 
spirit and the act. The founders of the church 
had turned away from their homes and had crossed 
the sea. These new exiles only crossed the street, 
but the street was wider than the ocean had been, 
and there was no return. Looking down upon the 
public square which is now the scene of hopeless 



STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 169 

confusion, but then was resting in the quiet of the 
Sabbath, a quietness deepened by the sadness of 
their spirit and the solemnity of their act, stood 
the plain village court-house. Up the steps of this 
house of the law went these pilgrims, great in their 
confidence and cherishing their alliance with the 
devoted men of the earliest day. It was a meeting 
of profound and sacred interest which was held in 
this strange place on that strange morning. There, 
for two years, the church had its home. For their 
meetings for prayer and conference they resorted 
to a room in their " own hired house," and at dusk 
brave women were seen passing along the streets, 
bearing their lamps, — brave women, for as they 
went the profane jeered at them as " foolish vir- 
gins." The term was not well chosen, for they 
had oil in their vessels with their lamps, — the oil 
which had not failed since Margaret Shepard 
walked in its light. 

A new society was formed which should take 
the place of the parish, and very soon the purpose 
was carried out to erect another meeting-house for 
themselves. Neighboring churches gave them as- 
sistance, and soon the old church and new society 
were able to begin their work. It happens often in 
this world that life turns upon itself, and we come 
back to places to which we were once accustomed. 
So they retraced the path which led to the river, 



170 STOEY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 

and to the place where the log meeting-house had 
been. In two centuries the house had been re- 
moved, and its place was covered. But near by, 
just over the way, was a lot of land which a kind 
woman of the church gave to them, and there they 
builded their house. It was a large building for 
them and for their ability, but it was suited to 
their wants, and was not without taste. Washing- 
ton Allston drew the plan for the tower, and the 
tradition is preserved that he liked to take stran- 
gers at evening to a spot a hundred rods from the 
building, and, asking his companions to mark the 
simple beauty of the unassuming structure, to 
repeat the familiar lines, — 

" If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, 
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.' ' 

There the official ministry of the venerable and 
venerated Abiel Holmes came to a close, although 
he lived until 1837. His last years were years of 
usefulness and peace, but he felt deeply the pathos 
of this closing period of a long life. The manu- 
script of his farewell sermon is preserved. The 
text was this : " For now we live, if ye stand fast 
in the Lord." It was full of affectionate advice 
and blessing. The impression was unspeakably 
touching, when after the sermon the aged man of 
God gave out for singing the 71st Psalm : — 



STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 171 

" God of my childhood and my youth, 
The guide of all my days, 
I have declar'd thy heavenly truth, 
And told thy wondrous ways. 

" Wilt thou forsake my hoary hairs, 
And leave my fainting- heart ? 
Who shall sustain my sinking years, 
If God, my strength, depart ? 

" The land of silence and of death 
Attends my next remove j 
0, may these poor remains of breath 
Teach the wide world thy love ! ' ' 

He died in charity with the world. To a friend 
who bent over him on the last night he gave indis- 
tinct utterance to his thought, and said that he 
. w T ished his injuries written in sand. On the day 
of his death the bells of the town were tolled in 
recognition of his work and in tribute to his mem- 
ory. He was a minister of the old school, an his- 
torical scholar of wide repute, a gentleman full of 
courtesy and kindness, a Christian in whom the 
steadiness of faith was blended with the gentleness 
of love. Some who were children in his day now 
recall his kindly manner toward them, and like 
to tell how, as he walked the street with his well- 
remembered cane, he would pause at a group of 
school-children, and with a pleasant question and 
a word of counsel, would draw from his capacious 



172 STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 

pocket a handful of confectionery, which he dis- 
tributed among the expectant listeners. And they 
tell how he stood before the pulpit a few weeks 
before his death, and gave a book to each of the 
members of the Sabbath-school as they passed be- 
fore him. No one can look upon the placid face 
of the good man without feeling respect for one 
who had served his generation so faithfully and 
had carried himself so graciously through his long 
life. 

A young man, fresh from the seminary, had 
been made the associate of the old minister, and 
he became his successor. His ministry here was 
of importance, but was very brief. After less 
than five years he left the town to become the 
minister of a church in Boston. This is note- 
worthy, as the only instance in two hundred and 
sixty years in which a minister has left this church 
to become the pastor of another. On his retire- 
ment another minister was called, who for thirty 
years rendered distinguished service, not only to 
his own people, but to the town and to the churches 
through the State. Then there came to the church 
a minister who remains until now in his place. 
He found the meeting-house pleasant and conven- 
ient, although too small, after having been three 
times enlarged. He found a strong body of men, 
a very compact and well-ordered congregation. 



STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 173 

Perhaps the experiences through which the church 
had passed had given it the habit of self-respect 
and self-reliance. There were men strong in the 
law, eminent in science, prominent in business, 
with honorable women not a few. There were 
younger men coming forward to administer the 
growing enterprise of the church, and the young 
life was starting up which gave promise of new 
energy. But it was very clear that the church 
could not remain in the meeting-house which it 
occupied. It turned back once again, and pausing 
near the college purchased a piece of ground 
which seems to have been reserved for its use. 
The Washington elm was growing before it, and 
over the street was the field where the soldiers of 
the Revolution had their tents, while just beyond 
were the buildings of the college. A skillful fore- 
sight had secured the place, and very soon there 
rose upon it a meeting-house very large and con- 
venient, imposing in its architecture and generous 
in all its appointments. Upon its lofty spire is the 
proud cockerel who from 1721 watched above the 
houses of Boston. To this new house the church 
removed in 1872 ; there it has had its home, and 
with its steadily enlarging congregation, with stu- 
dents from two colleges, with strangers from many 
places, it has done its work for the people who 
have come within its gates, for the community 



174 STOEY OF A NEW EXGLAXD CHUBCH 

about it, for the country in whose beginning it 
shared, and for the wide world committed to its 
care. The membership of the church from the 
seven of Thomas Shepard's day has come to be 
more than seven hundred who are banded together 
in devotion to the ancient faith, and in the fellow- 
ship of the ancient covenant. In the history of 
the church there are many events in which the 
good hand of God is very plainly discerned, — 
events which would not be out of place if an ex- 
tension were to be made of the Acts of the 
Apostles and they were included. That Provi- 
dence which was in the beginning has been the sun 
and shield of the church from its first days ; and 
with confidence in God's purposes the church, now 
strong and full of spirit, looks willingly down the 
waiting years. 

But what does all this mean? It means that 
the faith " once for all delivered unto the saints " 
has been preserved and has been preached as it 
had been received and trusted by those who were 
called here to make the church of God. We have 
connected the history with the six meeting-houses, 
but each house has been more than a dwelling- 
place ; it has been the testimony of the people to 
God. The walls, the spire, the bell, declare his 
glory, and one who looks intelligently upon the 
house thinks of God. It has been the home of the 



STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 175 

Christ whose name is upon the church of God. 
The meeting-house has been the place wherein He 
could meet his people, speak to them, comfort 
them, impart to them of his own life, send them 
out to minister to others. The meeting-house is 
the home of the young who are brought to it, 
where they are taught and trained in truth and 
service and made ready for the time when the 
church shall be in their hands. The meeting- 
house is the place of memorial, the home of those 
who live with God. They have their separate 
homes, but only in the house of God are they 
brought together where each generation can hold 
fellowship with those that have passed on. It is 
due to them, and to those who have entered into 
their work, that the names of those that have gone 
to their reward should keep their place. Friend- 
ship is too sacred to be lost, honor is too costly to 
be denied remembrance. There rises upon the 
banks of the Danube the Valhalla with all its 
splendor, where Germany preserves in statue and 
bust and name those who have lived to make 
Germany great. It is well that the meeting-house 
should be such a place, where men may live to- 
gether and those who remain may be in fellowship 
with them. If it were for nothing else the meet- 
ing-house which is old enough to have a history 
will find ample reason for its being in that it 



176 STOEY OF A NEW EXGLAXD CHUECH 

furnishes a place for the communion of saints who 
are on earth and who are in heaven. The house 
becomes endeared when familiar forms are seen 
walking through the aisles, when silent voices are 
heard in the old hymns, and vanished hands clasp 
our own, — the forms, the voices, the hands of 
friends loved long since and never lost. And for 
ourselves, for those who live to-day, our meeting- 
house is out home. It becomes us to make its 
worship sincere in spirit and in truth ; to keep its 
service constant ; to cherish its divine comfort ; to 
make its companionship complete, till it shall be, 
in very truth, the house of God, where we may 
find Him, and find ourselves, and sit in heavenly 
places : and the gate of heaven, through which 
our praise and prayer and treasure may ascend, 
through which eternal blessings may come to us. 
Soon and there will be no meeting-house, for in 
that world of light and love toward which we has- 
ten there is no temple, for the Lord God Almighty 
and the Lamb are the temple of it. God grant 
that we may come to it! Meantime, let us prepare 
for it, become familiar with its service, learn its 
songs of rejoicing, anticipating the glory and de- 
light of those larger mansions in our Father's 
house. It may be that there we shall recall the 
days spent upon the earth, the communion of the 



STORY OF A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH 111 

church in its familiar places ; and perhaps when 
we walk by the River of the Water of Life, and 
praise God and the Lamb, we may pleasantly 
remember the place by the river -side, "where 
prayer was wont to be made." 



X 

THE PLACE OF THE PRAYER 
Luke vi. 12 



THE PLACE OF THE PRAYER 



The life of our Lord was a life of giving. It 
needed to be also a life of receiving. It brings us 
very close to his great divine and human life, that 
we find Him at the end of a weary day spending 
the night in gathering strength for the work which 
was before Him. He had been teaching in Caper- 
naum, and from all the land the people in their 
need had gathered about Him. They had come 
from other parts of Galilee, from Judea, from 
Jerusalem, from distant Edom, from Tyre and 
Sidon, and every one brought a necessity which 
nowhere else could be helped. They thronged 
about Him, they touched Him, they besought Him ; 
and men with evil spirits fell at his feet, crying, 
" Thou art the Son of God." He healed many, 
and when He could no longer endure what was 
cast upon his willing heart He asked his disciples 
to bring a boat that He might take refuge in it, 
and from its security He spoke to the people stand- 
ing upon the shore. At length the end came, and 
leaving the throng, and leaving his friends, He 



182 THE PLACE OF THE PBAYER 

went up into the mountain and spent the whole 
night in prayer. He needed to pray. Strong 
though He was, He had still his need. At the 
well of Samaria He needed to rest, for his weari- 
ness was as real as ours has ever been, and it was 
in a real thirst that he said to the woman, " Give 
me to drink." There were times when angels 
came and ministered to Him. But not rarely, con- 
stantly He lived in prayer. Many times He was 
found at prayer, but commonly it was in secret. 
He prayed at the grave of Lazarus, when his sym- 
pathy had taken the sorrow of his friends upon his 
life. He prayed in Gethsemane, when his agony 
was upon Him ; and at the last Passover, beneath 
the shadow of the Cross, He breathed out the 
prayer which is the most sacred portion of the 
sacred Scriptures. It belonged to his humiliation, 
it was a part of his true manhood, to pray, and 
to Him came the strength He sought. From the 
night upon the mountains He came refreshed to 
his friends, and from his disciples chose twelve 
who should attend Him, and henceforth there 
were thirteen, less one, who were bearing his name 
through the land. 

The lesson is a very simple one. He who would 
have the Christ life must needs have the Christ 
strength, and he who would have this must seek it 
in Christ's way. He went up into the mountain 



THE PLACE OF THE PRAYER 183 

and continued all night in prayer to God. It 
is no reflection upon us, or upon the world, that 
we have this constant necessity. It was never 
meant that the world should give us all that 
we require, or that we should find within our- 
selves the strength which we must embody in our 
life. It was never meant that men should be self- 
supporting, or should find in the world which they 
rule the rest and strength which the world needs 
to receive from them. As well wonder that the 
tree must reach out its branches for the sunshine, 
or send down its roots to the water-springs, as that 
man must look beyond himself for light and life. 
Let us be reasonable. If we were of the world, 
the world should care for us ; because we are of 
God, God will care for us. Because Christ's work 
is given to us, Christ's strength will be given to 
us. Because we are branches, the vine will furnish 
our life ; only like the vine himself, whose branches 
we are, we must look to the husbandman for the 
life which we can transform into grapes. 

He who has made us thus dependent invites us 
to ask of Him what we would have, to seek from 
Him what the world would have from us. "It is 
the comfort of our littleness that He is great." 
Thus God makes our weakness into strength, and 
from our dependence ordains the sacrament of 
help, which He will keep with us. 



184 THE rLACE OF THE P BAYER 

This rule of life has been many times proved by 
those who had desires for goodness and for useful- 
ness. Prayer is the expression of the child's sim- 
plicity and trust, and in our manhood those who 
prove it find it faithful, and many turn to it when 
the burden of life is heavy, and the way is weary. 
It was very touching, a few days ago, to hear the 
soldier with the empty sleeve speak of the great 
leader who has lately been carried to his rest. He 
visited him when the hand of death was on him, 
when his throat was muffled, and he could not 
clearly speak. He reminded him of his great 
service. He told him that the country would 
hold him always in grateful remembrance ; then 
the muffled voice interrupted him, and with eager- 
ness he turned to one of whose piety he was as 
certain as of his courage, — t; Howard, tell me 
more about prayer." 

It has ruled great lives, this coming to God for 
help. It has made men of gentle lives, quiet, 
patient, refined. We have followed them along 
the streets, sure that they were on errands of 
mercy, and when we have returned with them we 
have soon found them behind the closed door 
where they were with their Father, telling Him 
what they had seen and wrought, and praying for 
his blessing on their deeds. Great lives have 
borne great witness to the answer that comes to 



THE PLACE OF THE PRAYER 185 

prayer. I think that no one who has prayed 
steadily has long questioned the worth of his 
petitions. Prayer has been doubted, whether it 
were of good or not ; but the doubt, if it has 
lasted, has been of those who have not prayed, or 
who have ceased to pray. Men can live without 
it, and be useful, and generous, and kind, and 
honest ; but it were strange if any man could be 
so good as he ought to be, so strong as he needs 
to be, so wise as he could easily be, who does 
not follow the method of the gospel, and live in 
prayer. If our Lord himself needed to pray, 
surely all men need it. It is enough for the dis- 
ciple to be as his master. His work was greater 
than ours, but our work is greater than our wis- 
dom, or our strength, and is meant to be, for the 
strength is to be sought from above which will be 
equal to the day that is appointed for us. So are 
we taught. That we should pray, He was ever 
teaching who gave Himself for us, and bade, us 
give ourselves to the world. If every other rea- 
son why we should pray failed us, there would be 
one reason remaining which no heart that trusts 
Him could ever put away : My Lord, my Saviour, 
prayed, and told me to pray. So long as I trust 
Him, I shall make my prayer as He has taught me. 
It is a fine discovery that one makes when he 
learns that he can hold intercourse with God. Of 



186 THE rLACE OF THE PRAYER 

greater worth than to discover a planet is it to 
discover the right and faculty of prayer. Always 
there is something sublime in it which we should 
see if it were not so familiar. Think for a mo- 
ment. That man yonder, making his prayer stand- 
ing upon the earth, kneeling upon it, is separate 
from it; and his soul, at liberty, has found the 
heart of the Eternal, and they are communing 
together. How majestic are those simple lines in 
the old Scripture, " And Enoch walked with God ; " 
" And the Lord talked with Moses." Here is the 
disclosure of our nature, which is like to God, 
so that we can understand Him, and know how to 
speak to Him. It is a disclosure of our relation 
to Him, that this fellowship belongs in his love to 
us and is the answer of our love to Him. We 
do few greater things than pray. He delights to 
listen to our voice, and to grant us our requests. 
To come into conscious intercourse with Him, so 
that our desires become known to Him through 
our naming of them, and are his desires, because 
they are our own, — this is to rise above ourselves 
into the grander life which lies beyond us and 
around us. What comfort there is in this, and 
what courage ! It reinforces our faltering strength. 
It brightens the light where the oil is going out. 
It keeps the heart sensitive and brave. It is more 
than faith, for faith ministers to it. It holds faith, 



THE PLACE OF THE PRAYER 187 

but it goes beyond it. It has the greater privilege. 
Faith reaches up its hands and finds God above ; 
prayer drops its hands into the hands of God, 
stretched down to us. The higher the life becomes 
the more needful is it that we pray, in order that 
it may be perfected. The more easy is it to pray 
when our life has advanced toward its complete- 
ness. As the high mountains are more readily 
ascended than those that are lower, because they 
give us broken crags, points of rock that our hands 
may lay hold upon, ledges where the foot may place 
itself, and not the smooth, rounded sides of the hills 
beneath them ; so when we attempt a great ascent 
in goodness, even to be perfect as our Father in 
heaven is perfect, to glorify Him upon the earth 
and to finish his work, and we have gone our way 
rising above our life, it will be even more easy and 
more delightful, as it is more needful, to take the 
last step, where we shall stand upon the summit of 
our manhood, and broaden our vision of the heaven 
and the earth. When we have come really into 
the knowledge of God, and have felt his hand upon 
our head, and his breath upon our brow, and there 
has been kindled within us a new aspiration, we 
cannot find content till we have found Him ; and 
we find Him when, as our Lord did, we lift our 
eyes to heaven, and pray. Then from the heaven 
comes the answer of his grace. 



188 THE PLACE OF THE PBAYER 

Do you not think that it is an ungracious, 
almost heartless thing, to withhold our prayer 
because we doubt if any good can conie to us if 
we should pray? Could we not talk with God, 
even if we were not paid for it ? Is it nothing 
that we are able and are permitted to speak with 
God ? It is not true that prayer does not bring a 
blessing which otherwise we should not have. It 
is true, and the very word of Christ, that they who 
ask shall receive, and they who seek shall find. 
It is true, and the very word of Christ, that they 
who are to do his will must find strength where 
He found it. But even if it were not so, that any 
gain which we can measure comes to us, still the 
true heart would come to God, were it for nothing 
but the delight of being there with Him. It is 
a mercantile spirit which tries to set the rules 
of bargaining into the spiritual life. This spirit 
of working for rewards, which brings figures into 
affections, has always wrought havoc with religion. 
We do better to trust our hearts in those things 
which are truest in a man who bears the likeness 
of his Maker. But one says, " God is love. He 
knows what I need, and He will give it without 
my asking." It is true that God is love, and 
therefore that He will not give his best gifts with- 
out our asking. The best gifts must be taken as 
well as offered. The rain comes upon us whether 



THE PLACE OF THE PRAYER 189 

we care for it or not, but grace does not thus come. 
We can be rained upon without our will, but we 
cannot be loved upon till we consent. Love is not 
thrown at us, as a ball is thrown against a fence, 
to bound back into the hands that sent it. Love 
must be taken into the willing heart, for there is 
no love apart from willingness ; neither can we 
feel the Divine Spirit entering into our spirit and 
there working his will, unless in our liberty we 
consent to have it so. It makes a great difference 
whether the scholar wishes to learn or not. If the 
teacher and the scholar have one desire, then the 
lesson will be learned. It was an illiterate thought 
that a teacher " learns " a scholar his lesson. He 
teaches, the boy must needs do the learning for 
himself. Prayer is the turning of the heart to 
God, opening it, welcoming the intercourse with 
God, receiving the Divine breath, the inspiration, 
the power of the Divine Life. Why is it that the 
gospel in all its course is never the thrusting of 
mercy upon us, but the appeal to open our hearts 
and receive it, and live in its truth ? " Come unto 
me, and I will give," is the spirit of the gospel. 
I do not know how much there might be given to 
us if we did not pray. I do not want to know. 
I think I might endure to have it so, that to 
be blessed needed no prayer ; and yet I fear lest 
the heart should be hardened, thankfulness should 



190 THE TLACE OF THE PRAYER 

be excluded, and selfishness should be even easier 
than it is under the ordinance of God ; lest if it 
found me very rich, I might draw within myself 
and gather my wealth about me, as sometimes a 
merchant, when he has sufficient gain, retires from 
business. And what could be more dreary, more 
desolate, more heartless, more dreadful, than that a 
man's intercourse with God should be interrupted, 
— that intercourse which dependence graciously 
encourages. Far better were it that we should be 
impoverished while still keeping the privilege of 
prayer, thus keeping God, than that we should 
have an untold wealth and should be separated 
from Him. If I could ever do without the help of 
my friend, I can never do without my friend. I 
would rather have my friend in his poverty than to 
have his wealth without his heart. Anything were 
better than to have no God in our thought and love, 
and it were hazardous to be so independent that 
we should not be held under bonds we could not 
break to bring our prayer to Him. To walk with 
God, to have God talk with us, this is life, and 
herein is prayer. It is a beautiful picture given 
of it, whose meaning we cannot miss, in that 
gentle saying of the gospel, " Now there was 
leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom 
Jesus loved." That is prayer. Cherish the de- 
light of it, rejoice in the strength of it. 



THE PLACE OF THE PRAYER 191 

1 1 holy trust ! O endless sense of rest ! 
Like the beloved John 
To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast, 
And thus to journey on ! " 

What shall we say concerning the method of 
prayer? There is no method, there is no rule, 
no form which we must always keep. Life can- 
not run in lines, but is free, like love. It is 
beautiful, this vision of our Lord after that weary 
day. He parted from men, and slowly, quietly, 
went up the mount ; the world receded beneath 
Him, and heaven drew nearer. At last He was 
far enough above the world, and close enough to 
heaven. Then He prayed. The night wore on, 
and still He prayed. I think there is no more 
sublime sight we have of Him than when we see 
Him in the dimness of that night, when only the 
stars looked down upon Him where He lay at rest, 
on the bosom of the Eternal Love. It was as if 
his spirit had gone out and had found the Eternal 
Spirit, the Father, who had given Him to the 
world, and there, resting, prayed. Not so fine as 
this is the glory of the Transfiguration, for when 
upon Hermon his face was radiant, and his gar- 
ments glistened, it was Moses and Elias who 
talked with Him. On this unnamed mount it was 
God. I think there is nothing more sacred, — no 
place where we would more readily put off our 



192 THE PLACE OF THE PEAYER 

shoes from off our feet, where we would cover our 
eyes if they dared to search the twilight, in all the 
way from Bethlehem, where He was born, to 
Olivet, from whose height He returned into hea- 
ven. The Son of God, alone with the Father, 
through the long night, between two days of sacri- 
fice, — I cannot think of anything ivpon the earth 
more beautiful and holy than that. All the night 
He continued in prayer : yet He was not asking- 
all the night, or speaking. Sometimes He spoke, 
but oftener He was still, simply staying there 
thinking, feeling, receiving, resting, in the fellow- 
ship of the heavenly Love. T\ hen the morning 
broke, strengthened and comforted, He returned 
into the world. That mountain was his closet, and 
the door was shut. Xo one. not those who loved 
Him best, would venture near Him. It was the 
heavenly moment : it was eternity. The soul of 
Christ was one with the spirit of the Father. 

Let us bring his own deed into his own teaching 
as it reaches our life. Enter into thy closet, He 
said, thine inner chamber. Close the door. Let 
no voices from the world find you. Yet carry the 
world's need and your own want into the solitude, 
and there wait with God. Take time for this com- 
munion. Hours are well spent when they are 
spent with Him. Some things can be hurried ; 
prayer must be deliberate. There are times, in- 



THE PLACE OF THE PRAYER 193 

deed, when suddenly we cry out, as the sinking 
Peter prayed, " Lord, save me ; " times when out 
upon the street, in the strife and strain of daily 
life, with the confusion of the earth about us, we 
pray in brief sentences, in single words, without 
words, and the prayer is true and acceptable with 
God. But that we may pray instinctively, when 
some necessity surprises us, we must have our 
mind trained to ready worship ; and if we are to 
pray amid the noises of the earth, we need to have 
schooled ourselves in the quietness of the closet. 
We must take time to find ourselves, to think 
upon our wants, to know what things we have to 
make confession of, what petitions best become our 
day ; what wants there are without, in the house, 
in the church, in the world, far away where the 
lone workman builds for God, or the apostle in 
the strange land proclaims the Father's love, the 
Saviour's grace. We must take time to know our- 
selves, to make ourselves conscious of God's pre- 
sence, to let the spirit free itself from all that 
would detain it, and thus to rest in God. The 
closet favors this gathering together of our 
thoughts. It is true that God is everywhere, but 
we are not everywhere. Let us ask for that we 
need, or better, for that God knows we need. Let 
us ask that our will may rise to his will, and our 
wishes find contentment in his purposes. Let us 



194 THE FLACE OF THE FBAYER 

ask, careful of our words, yet not fearful of mis- 
take if so the heart be reverent, for He who has 
bidden us speak to Him can change the manner 
of our speaking and give to our desires a better 
answer than they thought of. We are taught that 
we may come boldly ; but the boldness is not in 
ourselves, but in his understanding of us, of our 
sincerity and submission and necessity. We are 
alone with God, yet we are not alone, for He is 
there who taught us our first prayer and our last, 
who is our friend and God's, our Intercessor, and 
we shall pray the better if our eyes are fixed on 
Him, and we rest in his gracious mediation. It 
was the beautiful habit in the heart of the great 
English preacher, when he prayed, to lay his Greek 
Testament open on the chair before him, that be- 
tween him and the unseen Love with which he 
held communion might be the blessed life which 
revealed itself along the words which He had 
spoken. Thus can we always have the strength- 
ening of our faith, the purifying of our desires, 
the commending of our requests, the gathering in 
of our blessings, if we pray with our minds and 
hearts resting in Him who brings us where we rest 
in God. 

I cannot help the thought which grows stead- 
ily upon me, — I would not part with it unless I 
were compelled, — that the better part of prayer is 



THE PLACE OF THE PBAYER 195 

not the asking, but the kneeling where we can ask, 
the resting there, the staying there, drawing out the 
willing moments in heavenly communion with God, 
within the closet, with the night changed into the 
brightness of the day by the light of Him who 
all the night was in prayer to God. Just to be 
there, at leisure from ourselves, at leisure from 
the world, with our souls at liberty, with our spirit 
feeling its kinship to the Divine Spirit, with our 
life finding itself in the life of God, — this is 
prayer. Would it be possible that one could be 
thus with God, listening to Him, speaking to Him, 
reposing upon his love, and not come out with a 
shining face, a gladdened heart, an intent more 
constant and more strong to give to the waiting 
world which so sadly needs it what has been taken 
from the heart of God ? Then, He who has led us 
into the closet and patiently waited with us there 
will lead us down the mountain where our work 
lies, God's work. The vine will cling to the 
branch, even as the branch holds fast to the vine 
whose life it constantly takes, whose life it has 
strongly taken in the night of prayer. He will 
lead us on through our life beyond the world, up 
into the mansions of the Father's house which 
are prepared for us, where all the air will be full 
of worship, and all the light will be the glory of 
God and of the Lamb, and there still, and for- 



196 THE PLACE OF THE PRAYER 

ever, we shall find the closet where with God we 
can be alone, though saints and angels sing be- 
yond the door. It has been said that there will be 
no prayer in heaven. I cannot think that it is 
true. Certainly there is prayer in heaven now, 
for there the High Priest makes intercession for 
ns. There will always be prayer. They who think 
that prayer means restlessness, and nnhappiness, 
and is wholly the cry of sorrow and of pain, may 
well say that there will be no prayer in heaven; 
but they who think that prayer is intercourse with 
God, being where He is, rejoicing, in the commun- 
ion with Him, may well believe the prayer shall 
be forever. We shall not pray all the night, for 
there is no night there, but all the day. Where 
the moments are centuries, and we live in the 
celestial brightness, our very glory will be the 
longing for more glory ; our joy will reach out for 
more delight ; our songs will strive to be sweeter 
and louder, and songs and joy and glory will find 
their worth in this, that we can carry them within 
the inner chamber, and there worship God in that 
which He has given to us. Prayer will become 
praise, we used to say ; but praise is prayer, for 
praise is being in the presence of God, thanking 
Him, and longing for more thankfulness, for more 
holiness, and the very thought of Him will quicken 
our desire more and more to please Him, as we 



THE PLACE OF THE PRAYER 197 

move on and on to that vision which the man saw 
who in the paschal chamber rested on the Saviour's 
breast, and taught us afterward that from being 
beloved of God, and being his children, we shall 
ascend to loftier heights, for when He shall ap- 
pear whom our hearts love, and we shall look upon 
Him in the eternal vision, we shall be like Him, 
for we shall see Him, even as He is ; and till that 
is perfected, our very likeness to Him will be the 
desire for the perfecting of the image, and our 
Christlike life will be our Christlike prayer. 

" More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. For what were men, . . . 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 



XI 

THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 

Job xvii. 9 



THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 



There was a doctrine much enjoyed by our 
fathers which they called " The perseverance of the 
saints." It rested upon the belief that one who 
had entered upon the Christian life and had been 
born of God would be faithful to the end. This 
was encouraged by the confidence of the apostle 
that He who has begun a good work in the hearts 
of men will carry it to perfection, and by the 
assurance of our Lord that He would abide with 
his friends, and by his prayer that they might be 
kept from the evil of the world and brought where 
they should behold his glory. The doctrine might 
have been entitled, therefore, the continuance of 
grace, or, again, the constancy of love. The truth 
which is expressed is full of comfort for times of 
discouragement, and of inspiration in all the diffi- 
culty of the Christian way. Certainly every man 
ought so to live that the doctrine shall be a part of 
his daily thought. 

We come upon this teaching in the ancient 
Scriptures. We find Job confessing his faith in 



202 THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 

this wise : " The righteous, also, shall hold on his 
way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger 
and stronger." In this he was asserting his own 
rectitude, while he complained of his accusers and 
made his appeal to God. In the midst of his 
passionate sentences he declared the constancy of 
the good man. In spite of all that he saw in him- 
self, and after his sad experience, he cherished this 
assurance ; and passing beyond himself he gave the 
statement the general form in which we have it. 
There is nothing strange in it, as we read it ; al- 
though there may come to mind many instances 
in which the righteous has not held on his way. 
But why should he not keep to his fidelity, free 
from the vicissitudes of life as the planet is beyond 
the clouds which the wind drives beneath it? 
Rectitude is from above, and should last. It is 
commended by conscience, and should be retained. 
It holds the eternal sanction, and should engage the 
entire life. 

The word " hands*" is a large one. It is used 
for the man, oftentimes ; as when we speak of the 
"hands" on a ship or in the factory. It is the 
symbol of a varied helpfulness, as in the phrase 
which has become familiar, "Lend a hand." It is 
the outside of conduct, whose purposes and motives 
are in the heart. It is with the hand that we touch 
the world, and do our work for it. The heart is 



THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 203 

disclosed by the hand. We make ourselves known 
to ourselves by what we do, and we are judged 
among our neighbors rather by our conduct than 
by our words. There is precedent for this, as when 
Christ taught that to say " Lord," and " Lord," 
would not be a title for acceptance, but to have 
done the will of his Father who is in heaven. 
Hence there is a constant call for clean hands 
which do no unworthy thing, but are set in useful 
deeds. It is by no means meant that clean hands 
are enough. They have their value as the sign of 
a clean heart, where the thoughts and intentions 
are right. Together with our Lord's teaching of 
the worth of good conduct, his highest Beatitude is 
given to the pure in, heart, " They shall see God." 
Clean hands are not empty hands. They are not 
satisfied in keeping from the wrong, but only in 
doing that which is right. They are more than 
innocent, for they are virtuous. It is little that 
they do not harm the world, for they are made to 
help it. An empty hand is a selfish hand, and this 
is the expression of a selfish soul. The purity of a 
man is more than the purity of a child, because it 
is invested in manly deeds. The ideal of a good 
man is not a statue of Italian marble, spotless and 
white. It is rather a sailor with the lines of his 
vocation crossing his hands, or the farmer who 
bears upon his palms the marks of his high calling. 
Cleanness is purity and virtue. 



204 THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 

There are many passages in the Bible in which 
the importance of right conduct is asserted in the 
strongest terms. " What doth the Lord thy God 
require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to 
walk in all his ways, and to love Him, and to serve 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all 
thy soul." "Fear God, and keep his command- 
ments, for this is the whole duty of man." " He 
hath shewed thee, O man, what is good ; and what 
doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and 
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " 
These are popular passages ; but while their impor- 
tance cannot be overstated, it is to be kept in mind 
that they are by no means the entire teaching of 
God. They are spoken against formality, against 
content with prayers, and sacrifices, and offerings, 
and all the outward acts which are connected with 
religion. The tendency was, as it is to-day, to give 
great carefulness to observances, and to find con- 
tent in them, even while they were not consistent 
with the tenor of the life, and came from an imper- 
fect idea of that which is acceptable to God, and 
were liked because of the great readiness with which 
service could be rendered, compared with the exer- 
tion which was needed in keeping the heart right 
with God. The passages have been read from 
their surface too often, while the mind has not en- 
tered into the depths of the words. Surely they are 



THE VIBTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 205 

hard enough, as any one would find who should 
attempt to change them into his own behavior. 
To walk in all our ways according to the com- 
mandments of God is sufficient for any man's 
strength. Men have at times turned to these vigor- 
ous sentences and admired them, because, as they 
said, there was no creed in them. What could be 
more thoughtless than that ? They contain a creed 
definite and strict. It is a great confession for a 
man to make in sincerity : " I believe in God, whom 
I ought to serve and to love with all my heart and 
mind and strength." A creed can hardly go 
further than this, if one includes in the confession 
the whole will of God, the entire compliance with 
his words. We cannot take refuge in thinking of 
the requirements of God as they were given in the 
Old Testament. They are to be read in the light 
of our own day, and heard in the teaching of Him 
who came from heaven. If we regard them truly 
we do not limit them, and they cover the Sermon 
on the Mount and all the teachings of the Son of 
God. The Old Testament is the tree in blossom, 
the New Testament is the tree in fruit ; and he who 
gathers what the tree gives gathers the fruit. The 
early commandment is unfolded in the later, and 
becomes more spiritual, and makes a stronger 
appeal to the soul of the man, and no one has 
rightly regarded it who does not receive it in its 



THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 

completeness. It is not a transition, it is an 
advance, when we pass without halting from the 

law that was given by Moses, in which the grace 
and truth were inclosed, to the grace and truth 
given by Christ, in which the law that is the will of 
God abides unchanged forever. 

The beginning of the right heart and the clean 
hands is in the recognition of God. From this 
comes the vigor of the life. It is this which, in the 
highest sense, constitutes a man. In these decla- 
rations of our duty, given by God and readily 
accepted by good men. is the statement of the 
relation between God and man. It is for Him to 
direct, and for us to obey : not because of his power, 
not alone because He is our Maker, but because He 
is right, and the right has the right to rule. Be- 
cause his commandments announce the best in 
purpose and in conduct, they are to be obeyed. 
The only adequate expression of the right is in the 
life and the truth of God. When they speak and 
we listen, we have entered upon the life which is 
honorable for us. and has the exceeding great 
reward. It is not doing that which is good because 
it is pleasing or profitable or remunerative, but 
because it is right : not because it is the command- 
ment. but because it is in the nature and spirit of 
the Eternal. — it is this which is duty in its highest 
form as religion. To hold this as the principle of 



THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 207 

our life gives to us a constant rule, a divine guid- 
ance, and an accomplishment which shall bring 
honor and content. 

In this thought of God at the beginning of our 
life, and in the purpose steadily to do those things 
which are pleasing in his sight, we have the an- 
swer to all our necessary questioning, and are 
raised from the uncertainty which adheres to our 
own judgment into the certainty which belongs to 
the ways of God. One who knows himself, and 
feels the sacredness of life, and understands the 
world, and looks into the eternities, is well aware 
of his need of instruction and control, and turns 
gratefully to One who is able by his counsel to 
guide him, and afterward to receive him into glory. 
If we can imagine a fine ship, well equipped and 
with its sails filled with the wind, conscious of what 
it needs that it may make its voyage in safety, 
employing the tempest and ruling the waves, we 
can think of it in all its pride and daring calling 
for chart and compass, praying for a sailor-man to 
become its master, to trace its course, to lay his 
hand of authority upon its helm. A man who 
knows how great he is, and desires safety, and as- 
pires to success, if he be wise looks beyond him- 
self for the law which he is to obey, for the spirit 
which he is to embody, and gladly lifts his eyes to 
the heavens and prays that God will be the master 



208 THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 

of his liberty, and by his ordinance make freedom 
into accomplishment, fulfilling the intent which is 
cherished. The right apprehension of law magni- 
fies its goodness and its kindness. It is not to be 
feared, for it is the Father's will ; it is not to be 
slighted, for it is wisdom in words; it is to be 
obeyed, for it is the thought of Him in whose 
hands our life is and our breath, and whose are all 
our ways. Richard Hooker's sentence so many times 
repeated we may with advantage recall to our 
minds once more : " Law has her seat in the bosom 
of God ; her voice is the harmony of the world." 
Law comes to us as light, and we walk in the law, 
as in the light. We do not make it, we accept it. 
We do not add to its authority by agreeing to it. 
Men fear to declare the purpose of obedience, lest 
it should bind them more firmly than they wish, or 
as if there were liberty in disregarding duty. This 
is a folly we should not be guilty of. Duty main- 
tains its integrity, whether we answer it with our 
obedience or not. There are obligations which we 
can make or refuse to make, but to obey the com- 
mandment of God is not one of these. If we have 
contracted a debt, we do not make it more binding 
by giving a note. The parent's duty to care for 
his children would not be enhanced if he should 
give them a writing confessing it. To receive the 
teaching of Holy Scripture does not make the 



THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN BANDS 209 

truth which is in it, or make its requirements more 
binding upon us. There have been those who re- 
fused to confess Christ before men, as He requires, 
lest they should take upon themselves duties they 
might become unwilling to perform ; but the duties 
are there, whatever they may do, and to have made 
the confession is by so much to have lessened the 
number of things which they ought to do. Think 
for a moment in what confusion we should be left 
if this w^ere not true, if one could escape a duty 
by declining to acknowledge it, and life were thus 
made dependent upon our preference and not 
upon the will of God. There is no abatement of 
responsibility granted to those who stand aloof 
from Christ and the church. What would be 
stranger than to put a premium upon the refusal 
to do, or to intend to do, the will of God ? 

The principle which we are considering becomes 
more clear if we see it in our Lord himself, who 
renewed for us the commandment of God, while 
He gave forgiveness for the past neglect of it, and 
imparted strength for the obedience which was 
asked. He bade men see in Him the Lord and 
the Redeemer, and to follow Him as the sheep fol- 
low the shepherd. This was to be through all our 
years, and forever. In the constant light and 
force which He would give the righteous should 
hold on their way, constant in faith and following, 



210 THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 

in the spirit and deed which would be expended in 
the coming centuries when He should lead his 
flock by the River of Life, and they should go 
with Him in the increasing blessedness. We shall 
do well if we enlarge our confidence in his leading, 
and our belief that we can follow Him ; if we rise 
to the obedience of God, sure that it is right and 
possible, knowing that the word is with power, and 
that divine help comes with the need of help, thus 
changing timidity to faith, and lifting our errant 
lives into the ways of God. This is right. If at 
any point we should fail, it will be honorable in us 
that we fail believing in ourselves and in God; 
meaning, with an honest purpose to which we will 
cleave forever, to fear the Lord and to walk in his 
commandments. 

Let us return for a moment to the confidence of 
the afflicted man of the elder day. It was not 
alone that the righteous should hold on his way, 
but " he that hath clean hands shall be stronger 
and stronger." We readily believe this, if we be- 
lieve in his continuance in well-doing ; for every 
consideration brings to the words a true confirma- 
tion. Upon the man who hath clean hands the 
favor of God shall abide. Read the first Psalm. 
" Blessed is the man that walketh not in the coun- 
sel of the ungodly ; but his delight is in the law of 
the Lord. He shall be like a tree planted by the 



THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 211 

rivers of water, and whatsoever he doeth shall 
prosper ; " and the fifteenth Psalm : " Lord, who 
shall abide in thy tabernacle ? He that walketh 
uprightly and worketh righteousness. He that 
doeth these things shall never be moved ; " and the 
twenty-fourth Psalm : " Who shall ascend into 
the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy 
place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure 
heart." Here is a verse from the Chronicles : 
" The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout 
the whole earth to show himself strong in the be- 
half of them whose heart is perfect toward him." 

But the powers of the man himself are in health- 
ful exercise. The whole man is working by a rule 
which engages all his faculties, and here, as in all 
exercise, these should become great by use. His 
benevolence should increase by benevolent deeds ; 
his truth become clearer and firmer by compliance 
with it, and the entire man move upward toward 
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Him 
who was perfect. With this will stand also the 
favor of men. Marking his integrity, they will 
employ him, advance him to places of honor, give 
to him the opportunity to use himself and by ser- 
vice to become robust. The confidence of men is 
encouragement for him, and encouragement is en- 
largement. He cannot be sure of holding high 
office, but he has the dignity of ruling himself, of 



'2V2 THE VIBTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 

keeping his life in the control of his conscience. 
He may not be certain that he shall leave a large 
estate in the world which he quits. There are so 
many things in the complexity of business life which 
work together for the increase of wealth, it is 
quite possible that to this man of scrupulous honor 
there may not come silver and gold. It is quite 
certain that he will have enough, and that the trea- 
sure which is of chief account in his own estima- 
tion he will carry with him to the land where 
henceforth he is to reside. A man's riches should 
last a hundred years at least, and bear transporta- 
tion from world to world. These riches will be his. 
His virtue will tend to plenty, and promote con- 
tentment, and bestow a healthful pleasure. 

To him there will be given a larger manhood, 
and more weight of character ; and character is 
strength. There will be the comfort of an approv- 
ing conscience ; and in this is strength. His gains 
will be worth more because there is no stain upon 
them. He can enjoy them without restraint, be- 
cause no one has been wronged for his advantage, 
or become poor for his enrichment. In his own 
heart, in his hands, will be the foundation of hope. 
For what ground for hope shall be so sure as this, 
that he has done the will of God, and has kept 
himself unspotted from the world? He will not 
suffer his hope to be lessened, nor believe that dis- 



THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 213 

appointment may await him. It is not pride, it is 
intelligence, with gratitude, by which a good man 
feels that he has done well, and that for himself, 
as oftentimes he has told other men, the end of 
righteousness must be blessedness. There can be 
little in life which is worth the having unless there 
be the consciousness that it has been deserved. 
Our great poet did not go far beyond the reality 
when he said that he thought a man would rest 
more quietly in his grave if he knew that the bare 
truth was written on the headstone. To know that 
the bare truth is honorable might well deepen the 
quietness of the repose. It is the man of clean 
hands whom God will employ in His service upon 
the earth. He alone takes what God can give, 
and what the world most needs. The bread with 
which the multitudes were fed came from the boy 
into the clean hands of Christ, and by the honest 
hands of men who followed Him was given to the 
multitudes around them. Recall his own words : 
" Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, He 
taketh it away: and every branch that beareth 
fruit, He cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit." 
And St. Paul's description of the useful man, as a 
"vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the 
Master's use, and prepared unto every good work." 
Men whom Christ has called to be his followers 
He sends into the world, even as He was sent, to 



•214 THE VIRTUE OF CLEAN HANDS 

do greater works than his, with clean hands that 
grow stronger and stronger. 

Thus is the righteous man set in with the great 
forces of the Alinio-htv. He is in league with the 
right. He lives in the purpose of God. He shares 
in the divine triumph ; and knows within himself, 
and gives in his witness to the world, the persever- 
ance of a saint. 



XII 

THE MAN AND THE VOTE 

Acts xxyi. 10 



THE MAN AND THE VOTE 



To be allowed to express our opinion in regard 
to public affairs is a costly privilege. It may not 
have cost us anything, but others have purchased 
this freedom for us with a great price. To be free- 
born is our inheritance. To have an opinion which 
we desire to express is a sign of manhood. For a 
vote is the expression of the man's opinion, and of 
his desire which he wishes to have accomplished in 
the community, and therefore of his character 
which stands around his judgment and his wish. 
A vote is a thought in action. It needs intelli- 
gence and virtue, a wise and upright character. 
It needs honesty, and the public spirit which 
enables a man to pass beyond his personal inter- 
ests and to regard the well-being of the state. It 
needs the unselfishness and generosity which in 
this form become the nobler excellence which we 
call patriotism. This is especially true because 
others with their wishes and their interests are 
involved with us ; because the country is affected 
by our principles ; not alone the Qquxitry of our 



-18 THE MAX AND THE VOTE 

day, but the country of our fathers which has been 
bequeathed to us, and the country which is put in 
trust with us for those who are to enter into our 
labors. The freeman's act bequeathed by freemen 
is a fine bequest to those who in their turn are 
entitled to liberty. There is great dignity in the 
words of one of our neighbors, many times re- 
peated : — 

" The freeman casting" with unpurchased hand 
The vote that shakes the turrets of the land." 

The vote, therefore, is to be esteemed of highest 
value, and to be kept sacred in all places. 

They are very impressive words which St. Paul 
spoke when he was upon his trial before King 
Agrippa. He was defending his integrity, and in 
doing this he recalled the evil days when he perse- 
cuted those with whom afterwards he rejoiced to 
be identified, and with whom he was content to 
suffer. " I shut up many of the saints in prisons," 
he confessed, " and when they were put to death, 
I gave my vote against them." The words as 
he spoke them are even more bold and expres- 
sive. It was the custom in those times to vote 
with pebbles ; in the ancient courts of justice a 
white stone was for acquittal and a black stone 
for conviction. " When these men and women, 
these saints, were before the courts, I threw down 
a black stone," he said. Whether he did this as 



THE MAN AND THE VOTE 219 

a member of the Sanhedrim or of some lesser tri- 
bunal, or whether he meant only that he gave his 
voice against the imperiled Christians, we do not 
know ; but we do know that long afterward he 
felt that their suffering and death was in his mea- 
sure to be charged upon him. He did not bind 
them with chains ; he did not stone them ; but he 
threw down the black pebble which was the expres- 
sion of his opinion regarding them and their cause, 
and the putting forth of his desire concerning their 
fate. The man went with the vote. From this 
responsibility he was too honorable to withdraw. 
He was too honest even to conceal it when no one 
accused him. 

It cannot be too deeply impressed upon the peo- 
ple whose affairs are entirely in their own hands 
that to vote is a very solemn act. In our own 
country more than anywhere else is this liberty to 
have an opinion and to declare it to be cherished 
and employed. We are set to the making of a 
republic in which every man shall have an equal 
right with every other man to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness, and the right to say what 
the nation shall be. Such honor rests upon the 
citizen of this composite Republic. He should feel 
the greatness of his task, and bring to it all the 
wisdom he can gain, all the integrity he possesses, 
all the generosity he can acquire, that the Republic 



220 THE KAN AXD THE VOTE 

may have the fall benefit of his enlightened and 
untrammeled manhood. The interests committed 
to ns are most weighty, for ourselves and for those 
who will stand in our places when we have gone, 
and for the world, for the great family of men en- 
titled to freedom and longing for it. It is the 
cause of manhood which is on trial here. Every 
man should feel the seriousness of his position and 
bring the full force of his character to the advance- 
ment of the common good. The nation must have 
citizens intelligent and virtuous if men from so 
many lands are to dwell in prosperity together. 
We cannot feel this too deeply. We have ad- 
vanced beyond the period of formation. u E Pluri- 
bus Unum '* no longer means " Out of many states 
one nation," but " Out of many nations one state.*' 
The days that we are passing through are as really 
critical as any that have gone. We have made no 
serious mistake, taken no backward step. From 
the colonies to the Republic and on to the Republic 
without slavery, we have steadily and not very 
slowly moved. But this has been the work of 
good men, and in a large degree it has been ac- 
complished, as it must be completed, by the free- 
man's vote. The early settlers in Massachusetts 
Bay sought to provide good citizenship by provid- 
ing good men. Their test of patriotic virtue which 
made it a part of religion, which must be firmly 



THE MAN AND THE VOTE 221 

held and bravely confessed, has been relinquished, 
and no one would restore it. A test which re- 
quired the citizen to be a member of the church 
would be perilous to the state, and more perilous 
to the church. But we can at least insist upon it, 
and enforce the principle by all the means within 
our power, that good men shall carry the Republic 
forward to the destiny of greatness and honor of 
which we freely boast. 

It is very evident that the act of voting is not 
performed in a moment. It requires indeed but 
an instant to throw a stone into an urn, to cast a 
ballot into a box, or even to prepare the ballot that 
it may express our will. But the character which 
creates the act and controls it has been long in 
forming. It is the making, therefore, of the true 
principles of citizenship which is to be regarded 
even more than the simple act in which the char- 
acter declares itself. We should be willing to 
meet the whole duty which is involved in express- 
ing our desire. There are few duties to which a 
man is more firmly held by every consideration of 
honor than he is to the duty of voting. If a man is 
not willing to vote, whatever the cost may be, his 
place is not in a republic. There are countries to 
which he is well adapted. In Russia and Turkey 
he is not called upon to vote, and the fewer his 
opinions the greater the favor with which he is 



222 THE MAX AND THE VOTE 

regarded. But this is the land of freemen, a 
republic where the duty of government and the 
honor and opportunity of it are divided among the 
citizens in proportion to their ability to receive 
them and exercise them. In the same spirit it 
should be insisted upon that with all pains men 
should acquaint themselves with public affairs, 
should know what the country is, what it stands 
for, what is its place among the nations, and its 
duty to the world. The citizen should be familiar 
with our history, which is not too long nor too in- 
tricate to be known. He should understand the 
principles of free government, the rules of political 
life, and all which goes to the making of a man 
who at the ballot-box is the peer of every other 
man. We may stand apart at every other place 
and divide ourselves between the rich and the 
poor, the high and the low, the statesman and the 
citizen ; but when we stand before the public urn, 
and choose and cast the pebble, we are not divided 
in duty or in privilege ; we are on one plane, as 
the citizens, the makers and preservers of the na- 
tion. We felt this when we were called upon, 
not many years ago, to defend the union of the 
States, and to promote liberty in the land. Men 
came from all ranks into the army and the navy, 
and their distinctions were lost in the love of coun- 
try, and they dared and died in a common honor 



THE MAN AND THE VOTE 223 

under the one flag, and they have to-day the hom- 
age of a grateful nation. Something is wanting in 
a man's self-respect and regard for liberty if he does 
not hold it as a privilege worth dying for, worth 
living for, to be the active citizen of the first true 
republic of the world, and to be able, peacefully 
and solemnly, to make known his desire and to 
have it reckoned in on equal terms with every 
other man's desire. 

Let us remember that an election among us is 
not made in any one day, although for convenience 
we name certain hours when the ballots may be 
cast. The election itself is predetermined. It is 
a result. It is like the verdict upon a cause which 
has been for weeks on trial, and for years in mak- 
ing. Opinions, and still more character, are of 
slow growth. We are to instruct ourselves and 
one another in the principles and issues which are 
involved ; then it takes but a moment to declare 
the results of our thinking. We sometimes call 
the weeks which precede an important election 
"a campaign of education." The term is well 
chosen, but unfortunately the campaign is too 
brief. If I may borrow a term from college life, 
it is very much like " cramming " for an examina- 
tion. One who has neglected his studies may by 
this means survive the testing to which he is com- 
mitted. The scholar depends upon nothing so 



224 THE MAX AXD THE VOTE 

hasty and unjust, but upon the persistent work of 
the months which were given him for learning. 
To be constantly studying the duties of citizen- 
ship, and giving through the country the know- 
ledge which is necessary to intelligent action, is the 
preparation for the voting-day. 

" I, Freedom, dwell with Knowledge : I abide 
With men whom dust of faction cannot blind 
To the slow tracings of the Eternal Mind." 

But we are always voting. We are always 
declaring our views and expressing our wishes. 
It is by means of this, and the sharing and com- 
bining of our opinions, that we enlarge our own 
wisdom and agree upon a policy which no single 
mind would have been likely to discover. It is 
simply the old proverb, " In a multitude of coun- 
selors there is safety." In the home, in the 
church, in the town, we are giving our voice for 
that which we approve. Even when we say no- 
thing our silence is our ballot. Our presence or 
our absence is a vote. Our hand helping, hinder- 
ing, doing nothing, is our vote. Parties are by no 
means limited to politics. There have been almost 
from the beginning two great parties in the world, 
God's and the other. There have been two great 
causes, the cause of the right and of the wrong ; 
and every good man and every good act is a vote 
for goodness. Or we may vote upon the other 



THE MAN AND THE VOTE 225 

side. The question of honor and honesty in busi- 
ness, in professional life, in politics, in society, is 
always before us, and we vote every day. We 
can declare ourselves firmly and thoroughly for 
integrity, by being scrupulously upright, doing 
our duty, telling the truth, paying our debts, liv- 
ing generous lives. 

Questions of reform are always before us, and 
we cast our vote for purity and safety, for the 
welfare of the poor, for the security of the helpless, 
for all which makes the common life more true 
and clean. Or by doing nothing, unless it be 
finding fault, we may vote upon the other side. 
The great question of thoughts versus things keeps 
itself before us. We may vote by our words, our 
spirit, our acts, for the things which are seen and 
temporal or for the truths which are eternal, 
though they be unseen. We can stand for those 
things which bring the kingdom of heaven closer 
to the earth, and quicken the spiritual nature, and 
make the rule of God prevail in all the affairs of 
men. One day in the week is especially voting- 
day. It is the day of the Lord, when by his com- 
mandment we are permitted to cease from labor, to 
hold the hours sacred, to enlarge our divine nature, 
to strengthen all our thoughts of God and immor- 
tality ; of Christ and his redemption ; of the eter- 
nal truth and eternal life which we can receive only 



THE MAX AXD THE VOTE 

from his hands. The Lord's day means all this, 
and we vote every Sunday. It is a beautiful custom 
in our navy on this day to raise the flag which 
stands for Christ and the Christian life over that 
of the ship, the only one which at any time can 
float above the flag of the Republic. We can have 
this custom, if we choose, upon the shore. Which 
way should we vote ? Let us inform ourselves of 
the value of the Sabbath to every man's home, its 
inestimable worth to the poor man and his dwell- 
ing, its worth to the neighborhood and to the coun- 
try and to the wide world. Let us think of its 
divine sanction and authority. Think what it was 
to those whose memory is the most sacred recollec- 
tion of our life, and what it will be as a formative 
influence in the life which in this day is cruelly 
prone to worldliness and the forgetfulness of God. 
TTe can preach the holiness of the Sabbath day. 
TTe can preserve its holiness in comfort, and rare 
enjoyment, and the refreshing of the body and the 
soul. The walk to the church is a long vote for the 
Fourth Commandment. It is in keeping with our 
New England history, with the teaching of prophets 
and apostles and of our Lord himself, and with a 
rational regard for our own welfare, to stand firmly 
on the side of the commandment. Our Lord did 
not remove the day when He found it burdened 
with superstition, but He set it free and put it in 



THE MAN AND THE VOTE 227 

order, because He clearly meant that it should 
stand to the end as God's day ; and by his own 
Resurrection, which changed the hours of the week, 
He gave to the first day its lasting honor. It is 
certainly very beautiful, and in fine contrast to the 
spirit which disowns all that is of special sanctity in 
the day, when the household, parents and children, 
leaving their own door, walk quietly, reverently, 
to the common home, where with their neighbors 
they can worship God in prayer and song. The 
time has certainly come when all who believe in 
remembering the Sabbath day to keep it holy 
should openly vote as they believe. 

The prolonged vote is the real vote. Once in 
four years we vote for a president, but once in 
four hours for the country. Once in a year for the 
city government ; once in an hour for the city. 
Always we are voting on the great issues between 
conscience and inclination, between duty and habit, 
between ministering to others and being ministered 
unto, between the march and the intrenchment. 
Upon these questions there is no third party, there 
is no silent party. Some one stands near enough 
to see our ballot ; or if, perchance, there is no one, 
we see it ourselves, and He sees it who sat over 
against the treasury in the temple and watched the 
voting, and registered one ballot which was cast by 
a widow and expressed her life. You recall many 



228 THE MAX AXD THE VOTE 

instances, and yon pay honor to them, when men 
have had a life-long vote which they have left as a 
permanent force in the home and in the Republic. 
I wish that I knew how to impress this truth. Oh, 
men, which side are we on ? AVhat do we stand 
for ? Is it for honor, truth, liberality ? Is it for 
the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, 
the Lord's Prayer, the Golden Rule ? Is it for 
God? 

Men have been voting from the beginning. 
Adam and Eve and Cain voted on one side of the 
question of righteousness, and Abel upon the other 
side. Thus it was with Moses and Pharaoh, 
Joshua and Balaam, David and Solomon, Daniel 
and Belshazzar. Men have divided all along the 
course of life. There are records of special bal- 
loting, as when Moses found the people discon- 
tented, and disposed to turn away from him. He 
took his stand and called upon all who were with 
him to bring in their votes. The question was 
this, as it was announced : " Who is on the Lord's 
side ? Let him come unto me." This division of 
the house was in itself more satisfying than the 
conduct which followed it. So Joshua^ when he 
had led the people to the borders of the land of 
promise, called upon them to vote who should bear 
rule over them. "Choose you this day whom ye 
will serve." They made their choice, which many 



THE MAN AND THE VOTE 229 

of them soon denied. The Epistle to the Hebrews 
has the record of men who on the great questions 
of life voted, and so voted that they are held up for 
the encouragement of timid souls who would fain 
be faithful, to whom is given the triumph of right- 
eousness. Among the men of the New Testament 
we find the voting. The Sanhedrim is against 
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. We find 
the people voting on the grave question which 
Pilate submitted to them, " Whom shall I release 
unto you ? " They voted for Barabbas, and gave 
Jesus to the Cross. 

Yes, it is voting, all the way, and all the time. 
In the deep matters of life we are freemen, created 
free. The old question comes before every genera- 
tion and every man anew, What shall I do with 
Jesus ? What think ye of Christ ? Our belief is 
our vote. Our confession is our vote for Him. 
Our baptism is our vote for Him into whose name, 
into whose grace, we are baptized. The questions 
of a Christian life are decided every hour. We 
can at least make our own ballot right. We may 
not prevail upon our neighbor. We may not con- 
trol the opinions of others. We may not persuade 
them to do what we esteem their duty, but one 
thing every man can do, he can do his own duty 
and the whole of it. He can do it openly. 



XIII 

THE SAILOR-MAN 

S. Matthew xvii. 27 



THE SAILOK-MAN 



These are the spring days, when the thoughts 
of many are turning toward the sea. Some are 
thinking of the winding coast along which they 
will run in their palace yachts. Some are prepar- 
ing for voyages across the ocean, when in long 
days they may breathe in the vigor of the salt 
waves and winds, till they are landed among the 
mountains and lakes, the cities and cathedrals of 
a distant world. Some are turning curiously to- 
ward the North Cape and its unbroken day; 
others, fewer but bolder, are looking into the 
farthest North, if they may find the Pole, in which 
all believe but which no man has seen. The 
merchant is turning to the sea, that he may bring 
home the goods of other climes, upon which he 
may pay tribute and make his gain. The govern- 
ment is sending its envoys to the governments of 
distant nations ; the missionary embarks upon the 
deep, that he may fulfill the command which in- 
spires him, " Go into all the world, and preach 
the gospel to every creature." Thus personal 



234 THE SAILOB-MAX 

comfort, the ardor for discovery, the necessities 
of government, the enterprise of the merchant, the 

passion of the missionary, bring them to the sea 
on which they will sail away. In all this which is 
proposed, there is one man and only one man who 
cannot be spared. There is one man whose place 
neither the statesman nor the merchant nor the 
discoverer can take. For the purposes of civiliza- 
tion, for the union of separate nations, for the 
evangelizing of the world, we look to one man. 
In all this varied work which sends us to the sea, 
the indispensable man is the sailor. 

Surely it must be impressive to any one to think 
how far we are dependent upon the sailor. For the 
comforts which are in our homes, for the extend- 
ing of our knowledge, for the fulfillment of our 
hopes for men and for the kingdom of God in the 
world, we turn to this one man. Thus, always, men 
have been looking toward the sea. It is not the 
prophet only who is found with his eyes ranging 
far beyond the line of the coast. The picture 
which is given to us of him may stand as the 
picture of all men whose vision has been wide 
and whose life has been large. It was a time 
when, for the iniquity of king and people, there 
had come upon Israel that long period of famine 
when for three years and six months the heavens 
were shut up, and there was no rain, and, there- 



THE SAILOR-MAN 235 

fore, no bread. Then the prophet challenged the 
priests of Baal to the contest with fire, wherein 
Jehovah and his prophet triumphed. He was 
confident that now there would come deliverance 
to the country in that the people turned, with 
hasty acclaim, from Baal to Jehovah. The pro- 
phet assured the king that rain was soon to 
come again. But let us read the story as it was 
written : — 

" And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat 
and drink ; for there is a sound of abundance of 
rain. So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. 
And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and 
he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his 
face between his knees, and said to his servant, 
Go up now, look toward the sea." 

There was a long waiting and watching, but at 
last the servant returned with the glad message, 
" There ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, 
like a man's hand." And soon above the sea the 
heaven became black with clouds and wind, and 
presently " there was a great rain." Thus always 
it has been, — men looking toward the sea for 
help. 

We have another interesting incident, of smaller 
proportions than this, when our Lord consented to 
pay the tribute which was not due from Him, lest 
He should offend those who would know of his 



THE SAILOR-MAX 

refusal, and gave to his disciples this direction : 
•• Go tli »u to the sea. and cast a hook, and take up 
the fish that first cometh up ; and when thou hast 
opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of 
money : that take, and give unto them for me and 
thee." The result is not told, nor doubted. From 
the sea came the tribute-money. 

But before our Lord thus called upon the sea to 
make this gift to men. He had turned to it that He 
mio'ht add to its wealth. He had riven to the sea 
the men who should use it. and make it of mani- 
fold service to the world. He had come to it 
when its waters were troubled and the tempest 
swept over it. and with his voice He had given it 
quiet. He had filled it with the fish who were to 
have their home in it and to be in a large measure 
its wealth. From it He had called men to whom 
should be given the highest honor ever bestowed 
upon men, to be his disciples and apostles. 
Surely He might use the sea when He would 
move from place to place, or when He would make 
requisition for his needs. Let us learn the lesson. 
TTe have a right to look to the sea, that it may 
give to us. as it does, ungrudgingly ; but we ought 
also to look to the sea that we may give to it in 
our liberality. It is not the waters themselves 
which ask anything at our hands, but the men 
who belong to it, who are so completely wedded to 



THE SAILOR-MAN 237 

it that the sea is a part of their life, so that it 
fashions their thought, touches their affections, 
governs their purposes, controls their welfare, and 
reaches into their destiny. 

It is said that there are three millions of men 
whose home is upon the sea. Who are they? 
They are men like ourselves, with a common 
heart, with common sympathies, affections, de- 
sires, possibilities — men whose stay upon the earth, 
like ours, is brief, and who, like us, are soon to 
sail away for another country, leaving the earth 
forevermore behind them. This is the great truth 
concerning them, which is to be remembered : they 
are men. What men want, they want. What men 
enjoy, they enjoy. What will help men, will help 
them. They are generous men, ready to share 
with a shipmate or even with a stranger what they 
have gained at a great price. They are men of 
simple lives, accustomed to trust, unsuspicious, 
easily led, upward or downward, as may chance to 
them when they are upon the land. We see them 
commonly along our streets at their worst, when 
the long-continued pressure is removed and all 
authority over them is gone, and the habit of 
obedience, which belongs with the rule that of 
necessity is absolute, no longer holds them. In 
the gladness of a new freedom, it is not strange 
that they are brought into lawlessness. It soon 



238 THE SAILOR-MAN 

passes, and the habit of submission returns upon 
them. They are easily led into good ways. They 
seem to have a remarkable talent for listening and 
for understanding what is said to them, even 
though it be in an unfamiliar tongue. I have 
seldom found an audience so quick to seize the 
thought of a speaker, to discern every turn of 
his thought, to answer with a quick response to 
his appeal, as one composed of sailors, though of 
many nationalities. There is no class of men so 
easily persuaded to good resolutions which they 
mean to keep and to Christian lives which they do 
really live. They become good witnesses for 
Christ, not only upon the ship, but upon the 
distant shores to which they are carried. They 
make our national reputation among many of the 
tribes and peoples of the world, and create safety 
or peril for those who may follow them. It was 
the cruelty of sailors at one of the Melanesian 
Islands which led the natives to take revenge 
upon the next white men who came to them, and 
to send their fatal arrows against the bravest, 
truest man they had ever seen; and Coleridge 
Patteson, in his efforts to assist them, through the 
fault of those who had harmed them lost his life. 
But a stranger can go to-day to the New Hebrides 
and be in safety among men who a little time ago 
were savages, because Paton and his companions 



THE SAILOR-MAN 239 

have drawn them by bands of love into the lives of 
men. 

The sailor appeals to us again because of his pri- 
vation and his peril. For the most of his time he is 
very far from those things which are dearest to us, — 
far from his friends, from his home, from all the 
associations of his life, far from the church and its 
continual ministry, far from all which can restrain 
and preserve and elevate the life of a man. His 
place is one of continual peril. The life of a sailor, 
it is stated, is but twenty-eight years, of which 
only eleven can survive the hardships of the sea. 
The story of a fishing village is a story of priva- 
tion and sorrow. With grave fear the mother and 
the wife see the men who are dearest to them sail 
away ; they share every day his peril, and dread 
the news which any day may bring to them. I do 
not know of anything more pathetic than to see 
the groups of mothers and sisters standing upon 
the pier of a fishing village when the boats are 
coming home, fastening their eyes with dreadful 
interest upon the distant boat whose flag is at half- 
mast, and turning one to another with the inquiry 
which no one can answer, " Is it for your man or 
mine? " The prophecy of the days of the Persian 
war, of the disaster which should come to the hos- 
tile fleet, has come true a thousand times, " The 
women of Colias shall roast their corn with oars/' 



240 THE SAILOR-MAN 

It is all very sad, even when we repeat to ourselves 
the comfort which Sir Humphrey Gilbert gave to 
his friends as his bark entered the darkness of the 
night to be seen no more : " We are as near to 
heaven by sea as by land." 

What can we do for these men who are doing so 
much for us, and at such heavy cost? We can 
protect them with good laws, we can make sure 
that their ships are seaworthy, and that they are 
properly loaded. Few lines have been written in 
English literature worth more to the world than 
Plimsoll's line drawn along the sides of every 
English ship, the line of safety for every sailor. 
We can make our shore as safe for them as it can 
be made. Our system of lighthouses is as credit- 
able as anything which we hold toward the coasts 
of other lands. But all lands which claim a place 
among the nations illumine their shores. I had 
occasion not long ago to look over some of the regu- 
lations of the lighthouses of England. They were 
full of the forethought and carefulness which the 
sailors deserve. Men chosen with utmost skill 
for the work, controlled by all restraints and regu- 
lations, keep the lights. It seems a simple matter 
to keep a lamp burning, but only men carefully 
chosen could be intrusted with the work. They are 
held to fidelity. They are allowed no couch or bed 
in the lantern or the watch-room, lest they should 



THE SAILOR-MAN 241 

fall asleep. No man is allowed to leave his lamp 
to his successor till he has carefully prepared it. 
The lives of the men are insured by compulsion, 
that no anxiety for their families shall hinder 
them in their work. The simple direction in which 
all is summed up reads almost like a verse from 
the New Testament : " You are to light the lamps 
every evening at sunsetting, and keep them con- 
stantly burning, bright and clear, till sunrising." 
This they do in loneliness, often in peril. They 
keep the lamps alight. The tribute of our own 
poet is not overdrawn : — 

" Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same 
Year after year, through all the silent night 
Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame, 
Shines on that inextinguishable light ! " 

We have also our life-saving service, with strong 
boats and stout-hearted men, watching against the 
shipwreck and rescuing men who have no one else 
to whom they may turn for succor. Think of two 
thousand lives saved in a single year, and a million 
and a half dollars' worth of property preserved. 
A few years ago I was in the little English village 
of Clovelly, Kingsley's Clovelly, and at the foot of 
the long street, looking out upon the angry waters, 
was the life-saving station. The door was open, 
and I went in. No man was in the house. Upon 
the wall was a blackboard, giving a list of the 



242 THE SAILOR-MAX 

vessels to which the boat had gone, and the num- 
ber of men whose lives had been saved. It was 
an inspiring record. I ventured to take down the 
hat of one of those heroes, and to place it upon 
my head. I wished that I were worthy to wear it, 
or that in my life-saving service I might become 
worthy of such equipment. 

We build hospitals for these men of the sea. 
We provide consuls who shall be the appointed 
friends of sailors in strange lands. We have homes 
and chapels along our own coast, with men and 
women whose whole duty it is to be the friends of 
sailors, and well are they doing their work. But 
we can do more than this. We are doing more. 
We furnish books which they may read in their long 
voyages. We give them pictures which they can 
pin upon their rude walls, to remind them of their 
homes. We give them what are well named " com- 
fort bags," with a Testament, and those things 
which are of as real value in the small emergen- 
cies that come to men far from home. The Testar 
ment is a precious gift, but times often come when 
a needle and thread meet in a more practical way 
the immediate necessity. Thus are we striving 
with a zeal which should be greatly increased to 
make these men as safe when upon the sea as they 
can be made, and to provide for them whatever 
will make their stay upon the shore pleasant and 



THE SAILOR-MAN 243 

secure. We strive to teach them the truths and 
duties which belong to the life that now is and to 
the life which is before us all, the truths and duties 
which are as pressing upon the sea as upon the land. 
It is interesting to observe how much of the 
imagery of the Bible is drawn from the sea, and is 
naturally most appreciated by seamen. " When 
thou passest through the waters I will be with 
thee," is the Divine promise. For the obedient, 
" His peace shall be as a river, and his righteous- 
ness like the waves of the sea." The prisoner upon 
Patmos, in the midst of the sea, saw the Son of 
man in his glory, and the new song of the re- 
deemed from the earth was in a voice for which 
he could find no better description than that it 
was " as the voice of many waters." The familiar 
hymn which is so precious to our thoughts seems 
almost to have been written by a sailor, and for 
sailors : — 

i l Jesus, lover of my soul, 
Let rue to thy bosom fly, 
While the nearer waters roll, 
While the tempest still is high : 
Hide me, my Saviour, hide 
Till the storm of life is past, 
Safe into the haven guide, 
O, receive my soul at last ! " 

In all this, I have been speaking only of the 
real sailor, not of the landsman who works upon a 



244 THE SAILOR-MAN 

ship. The life of the sailor has its peculiar condi- 
tions which have their own interest, and must be re- 
garded with intelligent discretion. If we turn to the 
officers of our ships, men who truly belong to the 
sea, we rind men who have a thought and method 
quite distinctive, and always full of interest. The 
life of the officer of a ship, in our time, is of ne- 
cessity a lonely one. He is thrown upon himself, 
with a responsibility which others cannot feel. He 
stands by himself in the consciousness of a great 
trust which makes his life solitary. In this way 
he becomes a man self-contained, self-reliant, inde- 
pendent. He is his own companion, and comes to 
find in solitude a fellowship with himself and with 
his work. I call to mind, as I say these things, 
one of the bravest sailors who ever commanded a 
ship, a true sailor. i; a sailor-man " he liked to call 
himself. He had grown up upon the sea, and with 
it, and in it. till the sea and the man were partners 
in life, I talked with him in the frankness of our 
isolation. He told me many things of himself and 
of a sailor's life, and I wish I could tell them 
here, as sometimes they came to me in the quiet 
of his room, or upon the upper bridge at night. 
when the ship was far away from us. and the stars 
were nearer than the earth. Some of these things I 
shall try to give to you. I asked him if it were not 
very wearisome, the pacing to and fro upon the 



THE SAILOR-MAN 245 

bridge, alone, hour after hour. He said, No, there 
is always something to be done. The officer in his 
lonely walk must look down upon the ship, where 
at any moment something may happen that needs 
his care. He must keep his eye upon the sea, 
where a sudden change may come ; where far away 
he may see the light of a burning ship, or the sig- 
nal rocket flashing across the sky, or hear the cry of 
shipwrecked men from out an unseen boat. There 
is always something to think about and watch for, 
and this saves his watch from weariness. Then 
between us we made this phrase, which he accepted, 
and which I have remembered, found to be true, 
and many times commended to those who are weary 
because of their idleness and narrowness, only these 
words : " Care is company." 

But your responsibility here must be very great, 
constant, burdensome. " Yes," he said, " yet if you 
are equal to it, responsibility is pleasant ; but to be 
in a place for which you know you are not fitted, 
in dread of an emergency which you know you 
cannot meet, would be terrible." The time came 
not long afterward when he was to know as he 
had never known what responsibility means. In 
the darkness, after all his care and skill, his ship 
suddenly struck the coast of Wales. It was a 
fearful moment. Whether she would float or not 
he could not tell. Whether the lives intrusted to 



246 THE SAILOR-MAN 

his keeping would be lost, he could not know. 
For what he ought to do, he could rely only upon 
his own manhood and seamanship. Not a life was 
lost. The broken ship remained afloat, and he 
brought her safely into port. One good thing, he 
told me, came of that experience. " I found myself. 
I never knew before what I should do, what I could 
do, in an hour of sudden peril like that. I found 
that my mind would be clear, my hand would be 
steady, and I could do, under the terrible stress 
of the hour, all that it was in me to do. I 
found myself." Clearly, though he did not say so, 
the discovery of himself, this new acquaintance 
with the man he was to live with everywhere, 
through all his days, was pleasant to him. He held 
in honest honor the man he had discovered. The 
tender heart of the sailor went out to the ship which 
he had endangered and had rescued, and which had 
kept herself afloat, as his thought was, to bring him 
and herself into safety ; and when it was suggested 
that another ship might be given to him, he 
answered out of a sailor heart, " Do you think I 
could leave a ship that had stood by me as this one 
has ? " His fidelity and heroism were characteristic 
of the true sailor. We talked one day of the rule 
of the company which forbade that the captain 
should take his wife and children with him. " It 
is right," he said. " It would be very hard if any- 



THE SAILOR-MAN 247 

thing should happen to the ship, and we should 
have to take to the boats, for me to put my own 
children aside, and let them go down with the ship, 
while I took the children of these emigrants and 
put them into the boat, and gave them a chance for 
their life." Yet he would have done this ; any 
sailor would have done this. 

But there was a fellowship beyond this which I 
have named, the fellowship with Nature. All the 
air around him, and the wide sea, and the bending 
heavens were full of the presence of God. He knew 
the presence, he felt it, he was awed before it, his 
poetic mind knew its beauty and its strength ; his 
simple, reverent heart bowed in adoration, waited 
in confidence before the presence of the Almighty, 
whose footsteps were indeed upon the sea. More 
than other men whom I have been allowed to know 
he was the prophet of Nature, and Nature and its 
mysteries were revealed to him, and from his life 
and in his artless words passed on to those who list- 
ened to him. There has seldom been given to me a 
more impressive moment than came at night stand- 
ing with him upon the bridge, the ship silent below 
us, the waste of waters reaching into the dark, the 
friendly stars keeping us company. There an 
officer looked up into the heavens, and finding the 
planet which would listen to him inquired where 
our place was upon the deep, and out of the heavens 



248 THE SAILOB-MAN 

marked our point upon the earth. It seemed Indeed 
companionship with the Infinite, the fellowship of 
life with light, in the surrounding presence and 
care and love of Him who stretches out the heavens 
with his fingers, and holds the deep in the hollow 
of his hand. 

This was one sailor-man of whom I have been 
telling, a rare man, even among men of his birth 
and calling. But the elements which combined in 
his rich life are found in varying proportions in 
other sailors, and admiring them in him we learn 
to recognize them in others where they are less 
conspicuous. Every sailor may well become the 
greater in our thoughts for" seeing one to whom 
our admiration is our ready tribute. 

In the room of the sailor of whom I have been 
speaking, fastened to the wall, were the verses of 
an English poet, — the prayer of sailors who had 
been told that it was said in the New Testament 
that in the world toward which all ships are sailing 
there shall be no more sea. They were startled, 
and felt lost. The sea was their home. They knew 
no other. They had no life apart from it, and what 
could they do in a world where they were to stay 
forever if there was no more sea, and nothing to 
which they were accustomed? Then they cried 
out in their passion and their longing to the great 
God to listen to the prayer of sailor-folk, and give 
them back their sea. The prayer was heard. 



THE SAILOB-MAN 249 

We cannot change the world that is before us, but 
we can train the men of the sea for the life of that 
country which is their home and ours. We can 
bring them into the Fatherhood of God, into the 
friendship of Him who often was in the fishers' 
boats, who knew the waves and winds and ruled 
them, and who chose his closest friends from fisher- 
men. We can teach the sailor truth, virtue, piety ; 
prepare him to leave the sea and enter upon the 
land, prepare him for the place which the Friend 
of sailors has prepared for them. 

Pardon me if I speak one more personal word. 
My father was a sailor. I was a boy when he came 
back from a three years' voyage. The ship had 
been signaled from far away, and a friendly officer 
of the Customs let me go down in his boat, for he 
knew who I was. He was a plain man, but to 
my memory one of the finest-looking men I have 
seen. As we drew near the ship I stood in the 
bow, and at length could see my father leaning 
over the side of the ship, and watching for the boat 
which at last would bring him to his home. When 
we came near enough together I waved my cap. 
He saw me, and called out to one of the men, 
" Throw a rope to my boy." The sailor threw the 
rope, and in a few moments the boy was in his 
father's arms. It was a simple thing, but many a 
time since have I heard that voice, that command 



2 50 THE SAILOR-MAN 

which has become entreaty ; and it has become the 
voice of the Father who is in heaven watching some 
child of his who needed to be brought near to Him ; 
and I have heard the word and loved it, and tried 
to make it God's word to me, and the inspiration 
of my life, " Throw a rope to my boy ! " 



XIV 

MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 
S. Mark i. 16-20 



MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND 
FOLLOWING 



It was quiet on the Sea of Galilee in the morn- 
ing when Jesus walked that way and saw two boats 
standing by the lake, and the fishermen washing 
and mending their nets. All the night they had 
taken nothing, but that day was to make up for 
the failure. To this point the story is common- 
place, but the end of it is of interest to all the 
world. He bade them push out a little from the 
shore ; and when He had taught the people from 
one of the boats, He directed the fishermen to 
launch out into the deep, and to let down their 
mended nets. It was against their experience, 
but they obeyed because He said it. This is 
Christian obedience in a very simple form, — the 
doing at Christ's word what otherwise would not 
be done. They filled their nets until the strain 
was too heavy upon them. After they had come 
to the shore, He bade them leave their boats and 
follow Him, to be made fishers of men. This 
also they did because He said it, and we who hear 
of this to-day are of the fish they caught. 



254 MENDING, LAUNCHING, AXD FOLLOWIXG 

There are three parts in this narrative which 
is three times given to us in the Gospels. The 
mending was necessary, because, if the nets had 
inclosed no fish, they had been torn themselves. 

Why not leave them so. a witness to the work of 
the ni^ht ? This might be better than mending; 

CO o 

them. The torn battle-flag is of much greater 
worth than if it were mended, for its signs of 
brave work upon the field. One thing justified 
the mending, that the nets were to be used again ; 
that failure had not wrought discouragement. In 

o o 

deep waters and under a new command, success 
might wait upon enterprise. It reads like a para- 
ble of life, for we come often to the mending time. 
Our body and our nerves need to be replenished 
with strength. It is strange that a harp of a 
thousand strings should keep in tune so long. 
Our plans need mending, and our purposes, and 
our desires. Our habits need to be examined 
and mended. Our courage and hope and ambi- 
tion need to be reenforced. We have to make 
over our companionships, and often our friendships 
must be restored. Life must be adjusted to new 
conditions by mended methods ; hearts that have 
grown ** weary with dragging the crosses too heavy 
for mortals to bear ' ? must have rest that they may 
recover strength. It was a bright saving of our 
great preacher, and one whose truth he felt even 



MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 255 

in his stalwart form, that there comes a time when 
a man must " put in for repairs." But this neces- 
sity is a sign that we have worked, and our mend- 
ing that we are to work again ; else why do we 
seek new strength? We are obliged to do this. 
The future appeals to us. Ambition urges us on. 
Nothing but death can justify despair. The Book 
to which we turn for guidance has always a for- 
ward look. Duty faces the days to come. Na- 
ture, which rests through the winter, thinks upon 
the coming spring, not upon the past autumn. 
Mending is a prophecy ; mended is a promise. 
" The reward of a thing well done is to have 
done it," the philosopher says. He is not accu- 
rate. The reward of a thing well done is the next 
thing which can be done. The branch that bears 
fruit pledges itself for more fruit. If in some 
season it has been thwarted by cold and storm, it 
must recruit its energy, and begin again. The 
reward of bearing fruit is the cleansing, that it 
may bear more fruit. It is not loss, then, this 
wear of life, because it is not the end. Under 
ordinary conditions the tearing of the net has the 
recompense of fish ; if not this, the fishermen have 
gained something in experience and new skill, and 
have the next night before them. The nets are 
torn, not the man. Or if the body is worn, the 
soul is strong. The outward man may perish, 



256 MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 

while the inward man is renewed day by day. If 
the reward of living do not find him here, there is 
a to-morrow of our life. Some fish are taken from 
the sea, and some are found upon the shore, on the 
coals which a Divine Hand has kindled. 

" I held it truth, with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones, 
That men may rise on stepping-stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things." 

Thus in the goodness of God we are encouraged 
to go on to new attainments, but we are allowed 
times of rest for the recovery of strength, for the 
refreshment of our spirit. The legend on the seal 
of the Cambridge Hospital is appropriate, " God 
mends; man tends." Thus our conscience and 
our will are maintained. Our attachments to the 
things that are past are not destroyed, but are put 
in good order for the work that is before us. The 
time is well spent which is given to mending our 
strength, provided we are to make use of the 
strength in new service. Our Lord himself rested 
on the well because He was weary, but He gave to 
Samaria and to the world the revelation of God, 
who is spirit, and the direction for the worship 
which will please Him. 

But when our life has thus been mended, it is 
not that we may simply repeat the past, but that 
we may go on to better things. Launch out into 



MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 257 

the deep, Christ said, and there let down your nets. 
The word is timely. We are doing this from the 
beginning of our days. From the boat which the 
child sets floating on the brook he comes to the 
man's boat; from the child's book to the man's 
book ; from school to college, then out into the 
university of the world, and to the cares and honors 
which can there crown his efforts. Life is to be 
made deeper, not merely by this natural increase 
of its powers and their employment, but by the 
doing of deeper things. Deeper thoughts, deeper 
intentions, deeper affection and devotion, are to 
mark our increasing days. We go on thus to old 
age, but old age may well find itself in waters deeper 
than it has ever known. Age has its special ad- 
vantages for the best work of the man. Age is 
kind if its conditions be kindly. From certain 
things which have been done, from a stirring life 
out of doors, from a busy commitment to the 
affairs of the world, we may have to turn away ; 
but one whose net has become past mending in 
its meshes of thread may yet cast it in the deeper 
waters ; not retiring through timidity, indolence, 
inertia, through contempt for what has been done, 
with a selfish plea that one has done his share for 
the world, and in the abating of hope and aspira- 
tion ; but in gentle courage, a steady ambition, the 
full use of the powers which have grown through 



268 MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 

years of wisdom, keeping his boat still out upon 
the sea. 

" For age is opportunity no less 
Than youth itself, though in another dress, 
And as the evening twilight fades away 
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day." 

" What makes old age so sad is not that our 
joys, but that our hopes cease," Kichter said. We 
can keep our hope if we keep our thoughts afloat. 
There is more to do, more to enjoy, more to be, so 
long as there is deep water for our boats. 

To this the world is suited. With all our new 
learning, there is yet much to be known of the 
heavens and the earth. Knowledge is to be en- 
larged almost without limit. If there is no new 
truth to come to light, there is so much to be 
learned of all truth that it will be ever new. 
Higher and wiser service ahvays awaits us. 
Grander attainment invites us, and beyond these 
years of change stretch the endless days of Para- 
dise. Think and read more deeply. Serve with 
purpose deeper and truer. There is danger in our 
time that we shall keep near the shore, or sail over 
the shallow waters where we can see the sand that 
is underneath. Life has more liberty and more 
enlargement than once, but perhaps the old times 
were deeper than these. Whatever may be 
thought of the religious system of our ancestors, it 



MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 259 

is certain that they did not trifle with any duty or 
shrink from any truth. Puritanism went deep 
down into the realities of this world, and of all 
the worlds which we anticipate. We must be on 
our guard lest with our finer boats, and sails more 
delicately woven, and nets fashioned with finer 
thread, and more complete charts, and better com- 
passes and sextants, we yet skim the surface of 
things, and miss the deeps out of which the boats 
may be filled. It is not so much the boat and the 
net as it is the fisherman upon whom reliance must 
be placed. Whatever be the ship, she must sail 
on deep waters if she is to bring home a precious 
freight. Many things are said in the New Tes- 
tament in which this word " deep " is used. The 
simple phrase of the woman of Samaria may be 
extended far beyond her thought, " The well is 
deep." Yes, every well whose waters are pure 
and unfailing is deep, and the work of Him who 
comes down to our boat is to give us something 
that we can draw with, however far below us the 
waters wait. The common saying holds a reality, 
that " truth lies at the bottom of the well." The 
man who is commended because he wisely builded 
a house which no wind or rain could remove digged 
deep and laid the foundation far below the changes 
which might move around his structure. The seed 
cast on thin earth brought no fruit to perfection. 



260 MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 

In the deep places of the good ground the wise 
sower cast his seed, where no stones could check 
its growth, and no sun could scorch it, and no 
thorns could choke it, but it would bring forth 
fruit a hundredfold, or sixty or thirty, because it 
had what is so graphically described as " deepness 
of earth." 

Again, the things which God hath prepared for 
them that love Him are revealed to us by his spirit, 
who " searcheth all things, yea, the deep things 
of God." Again we find the exultant apostle ex- 
claiming, " O the depth of the riches, both of the 
wisdom and knowledge of God ! " Again, he 
prays that we may be able to comprehend the 
depth of the love of Christ, which passeth know- 
ledge, while he rejoices that his life is so firmly 
established that not depth shall be able to separate 
him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus 
our Lord. This is the vision which allures us. 
This is the sea which stretches before us. What- 
ever we have done, there is the call to larger duty ; 
however far we have ventured, the waters still 
stretch before us, holding their greater reward. 
Let us mend the nets and make them whole, and 
then launch out for more than we have ever drawn 
into our boats, and when the end comes, let it find 
us on the deep waters. 

But there is one truth further, without which 



MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 261 

our advance may prove a disappointment. Our 
Lord went with his disciples when they launched 
out with their mended nets; and when He bade 
them come out into greater service, with the high- 
est commission ever given to men, He did not send 
them, but He called them, and his word was as 
rich in the safety it promised as in the accomplish- 
ment which it made possible. " Follow me," He 
said. In all this there was nothing abrupt. Every- 
thing was orderly. Each of his commands was an 
advance upon that which had already done its 
work. But why should He detain them upon the 
sea, when He had this larger ministry in store for 
them ? Why not at once, seeing that time in this 
world is of so great account, and spiritual things 
have an importance which belongs to no others, — 
why not bid them drop where they were the nets 
that they were mending, and, leaving their boats 
uncared for, follow Him out into the world ? It 
was not his way. There was no haste in his 
methods. Not more orderly is the Nature which 
He rules than the methods of grace which He ad- 
ministers. They ought to leave their nets in good 
order if they were to become apostles. Silver and 
gold He had none. It might be requisite that the 
money for which they sold the fish should be taken 
with them into the world where friends might be 
remote. Again, it was of real advantage that 



262 MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWIXG 

they should know his power if they were to commit 
their lives to Him, and leave the only occupation 
with which they were familiar to take up a strange 
manner of life, to spend their days as no days had 
ever been spent before, in a ministry for which 
there was slight precedent. Or, again, it is always 
well that a great enterprise be taken up in a brave 
spirit. He found them at an hour of discourage- 
ment. They had spent a whole night and had 
taken nothing. They w r ere in no mood to venture 
into other service, nor was their disheartenment 
the true preparation for the w T ork which would 
require courage and patience, hope and cheerful- 
ness, more than any work which had been given to 
them or to any men to do. By these simple ways 
did He prepare them to hear the new summons 
and promptly to obey, and to go out with Him, 
they knew not whither, to encounter they knew not 
what, to do and to teach what never had been asked 
of them before. 

This was indeed Christ's way. He sought to 
gain the willing heart and mind of men, and then 
He would bid them to his service. He would 
teach them before He made them teachers, He 
would bring them to himself before He set them 
to bring other men, He would be their Shepherd 
before He asked them to be the shepherds of his 
sheep, He w r ould fill their nets before He asked 



MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 263 

them to fill his own. Not as He taught it, merely, 
but ever since, when it has followed his teaching 
and that of his apostles, the whole religious life has 
been an orderly process. The blade, the ear, the 
full corn in the ear, have been found in this order, 
in the lives of men as well as upon the fields which 
they planted. 

They followed Him, but what made them do 
this ? He made them. There was no constraint 
but the constraint which no one could perceive. 
His presence attracted them, his voice, his words, 
the very blessing that He had given to them out 
of the lake, after their failure, so that without 
compulsion they were compelled to follow Him, 
even as He said ; for their hearts answered to his 
voice, and their desires, excited by his blessing, 
would have carried them with Him, even if He had 
not bidden them. How could they fail to follow 
Him, after seeing Him, and feeling the attraction 
of his spirit ? 

Following is very common. It is the first thing 
we do, yielding to the parental leading, and after- 
ward to our teachers and masters, to those who 
are wise enough and good enough to command our 
confidence, and out of their lives to help us to 
fashion our own. This is necessary, if we are 
to make any advance : that men shall push out 
beyond the company and, making their separate 



I MEXDIXG. LAryCHIXG. AXD FOLLOW:: 

discoveries, call ns to come quickly to the pi 
which they hare reached bj a long and weary road. 

I: ~"v c.\r_ :::-:::: :: ::k:~ :k:sr ~k: Lire Lir :o 
conduct us beyond ourselves, then we are afr 

:kr r;.:-rrs. There is ;::_:::: in :he ::::-;lrz:r 
~hi:h riiikes "s : :'.'.:~-:-. I: :r_ ::_: ~-^e Lessens 
: :: ir. fiercer. :1 en :e. ';;'.;: :t~:.: : .- i: ::;::: :he in;le- 
::-::;:::■: :: Tr-hse: nien. -ken t t ::e -billing :h.\. 
rkev sh:yk:i :■-; :h v.- ~'zz: rhej L;-- T ::vjl:i :o ce 
rrne Chris: ::i: _ : :hese men ::.s Ht :::nes :: 
ns, with a wisdom as perEe :: is his love. He 
kn:~ s —he: eh i:: i^: :: kn:~. rk ;en :l: ~ke: 
all men need to have done, and can give to our 
life :he - : :t>: —"_::'_ Ee :".1t":: his :~ , Fol- 
low these men as they go away with Him. They 
Lit -5- rhe - _ i ^ _ t :: Li- 500: err. rk :ekks :: rkezi. 
:::_'. ~i_r" h-.e: "he: ~_t~ h \e r_e~T: kn:~rn. Er 
explains to them the mystery of life. He teaches 
than by parable and by miracle, so that day - 
day they are learning, and bringing their learning 
".ir. a ri lis :u~_ne ; r. . _:: ;-::.:.s ::::t:::, He e r\-- 
r:> :ir2i mere- rkein :keT Lrf-r::. mere :he:: rhej se~ . 
He ri T eS :: :hem hirrsehi. :::.". si™ It his hrrrenee 
• e.sses r :r :herL. :-r:: rheT lee-rr :: : :e rreek :.::.'. 



left :ke world : from having all that 

He had offered than, bat they had the beginning 



MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 265 

of all truth, and the memory of the life from 
which the truth had come to them. The presence 
of his spirit which He breathed upon them, and 
left remaining in their hearts when He had gone 
away, would bring the truth to perfection in them 
till they could be indeed his witnesses in a life 
which had been learned from Him, with a teach- 
ing which repeated his words of promise. They 
touched Him and were made whole. It was an in- 
struction in living which could be gained nowhere 
else in all the world, — not then, not at any time, 
in all the ages, — and it came from being with 
Him, walking the same road, resting in the same 
house, sharing the same experience, resting in the 
bosom of his compassion. This it was to follow 
Him. This it is to follow Him. They went out 
to do more than they had ever dreamed of doing, 
and they are the illustrious men of the centuries. 
They gave counsel and instruction to the master 
mind and heart which more than any other has con- 
trolled the thoughts of men whom He has reached. 
Their extended knowledge founded schools, sanc- 
tified the home, exalted the life, made common 
things sacred, enlarged hope and joy and every 
spiritual force, and brought down upon the earth, 
to touch it here and there, the kingdom of heaven, 
the kingdom of God. Not to us, though we become 
his followers and theirs, will so great a work be 



'266 MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 

given : but a work like theirs calls us, every one. 
We follow Him, and the heart becomes wise, and 
the life is a sacrament of usefulness. There is 
no way into the truth but by Him who is the 
Truth, and from Him come to men the Resurrec- 
tion and the Life. The world still needs, almost 
as much as it needed it then, to know God and 
Him who came from God, and none can give this 
to the world save as they learn it from Him, and 
only they learn it who steadily and lovingly follow 
Him. 

Thus the call of Christ is taken out of time. 
There is no chronology in Christian service. You 
cannot set the boundaries of years around the Ser- 
mon on the Mount, or the Lord's Prayer, or those 
holy hours before the Cross when Jesus revealed 
himself to these fishermen as none had ever seen 
Him before, and gave to them the truth which none 
have received except as they have taken it from 
Him. The call of Christ in its promise and op- 
portunity is as new as the light which flowed over 
the land this morning, as new and fresh as when 
light was first compacted into sun and stars. 
Christ moves forward, and the word of life is 
" advance." Steadily onward, never pausing, find- 
ing always new pleasure, gaining always new 
visions, they go on who follow Him, till at last 
they come beyond the world, and look upon the 



MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 267 

throne of God and of the Lamb, and, looking, 
follow Him forever. All these truths are gathered 
up in the teachings of an unnamed writer who 
himself had made proof of that which he taught. 
" Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which 
doth so easily beset us " — this is mending our 
nets — " and let us run with patience the race 
that is set before us, looking unto Jesus." Can 
anything be more delightful than this? Can any- 
thing better foster our eager aspiration and reward 
our loftiest hopes ? Knowledge, truth, strength, 
character, life, eternal life, come to those who fol- 
low Him, with glory, honor, immortality. It must 
needs be so. To follow Christ is to come where 
He is, and He is enthroned in the excellent glory. 
We cannot avoid this for ourselves. We must be 
wise and true ; we must be strong and helpful ; 
we must have the peace of God and the joy of the 
Lord, — if we follow Him whithersoever He leads 
us, across the earth, beyond the splendid stars. 
It is forward, then. Who would repeat yesterday, 
or live again the year that is gone, however good 
it was in its season ? As God lives, and our souls 
live, there is something better than yesterday for 
every man, and to this He calls us who has re- 
vealed it, and we find it when we follow Him who 
has entered into the fullness of the glory of God. 
We can change the scenery of life, however plea- 



268 MENDING, LAUNCHING, AND FOLLOWING 

sant may have been the landscape before which we 
have lived, and go on under fairer skies, where 
the Tree of Life, with its twelve courses of fruit, 
is watered by the River of the Water of Life, 
proceeding out of the throne of God and of the 
Lamb. 

I do not attempt to describe this in detail. I 
cannot. No man has ever been able to do it. 
One must see it for himself and have it for his 
own. But he is far from the thought of the love 
of God who is not certain that the more he lives 
in this love and has his being in its truth, he shall 
advance from grace to grace, from glory to glory. 
The religious life is not an outward service, a 
philosophy, a system of truth, a religion, even ; 
but it is the Christ life, and his light becomes our 
own. We follow from the dawning of the day 
and along the growing hours into the evening 
twilight, down into the darkness of the night, on 
into the light of a new day, the day over which 
the shadows never fall, the day of the endless life. 
Oh, friends, we are by the Sea of Galilee. The 
years stretch before us. Let us mend our nets, 
then launch out into the deeper places of the 
world; and mended, launching, let us follow Him ! 



XV 

THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 

S. Matthew xiii. 11 



THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 



The term " mystery "as it was used by St. 
Paul was very likely borrowed from the Grecian 
mysteries which had their home at Eleusis. What 
these were no one can tell. So very important 
were they, and so sacred, that every free-born 
Athenian was expected to be initiated into them. 
The ceremony was most impressive. At night the 
candidates were led through the darkness into the 
lighted temple, where they saw and heard what 
they could never reveal. One writer has left the 
remark, " Those who are initiated entertain sweet 
hopes of eternal life." It is said that in times of 
peril one man would turn to his neighbor with the 
anxious inquiry, " Are you initiated?" With all 
this the apostle was doubtless familiar. He used 
the term especially to describe the secret purpose 
of God regarding the Gentiles. What God would 
do for the Jews was plain enough ; what He 
would do for others was not so clearly revealed. 
But when Christ came, and the gospel was 
preached, it was found that the Divine Grace was 



272 THE CHRISTIAN MYSTEBIES 

for every man in all the world. The mystery, 
therefore, as the apostle wrote to the Christians 
at Colossae, was this : " Christ in you, the hope of 
glory." This was the manifestation of the gracious 
intent of God. 

But our Lord used the term M mysteries " in a 
larger way. and to his disciples He said, " Unto you 
it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of 
heaven/' He would have the word include all 
the truth which He taught. His disciples who 
listened to him. and received his teaching and 
understood it, knew the mysteries which from all 
others were concealed. But why were there any 
mysteries ? Why were not the secrets of heaven 
spread abroad like the stars, that every man might 
see them ? It was because men were not able to 
see them. As there are books which w 7 e do not 
put into children's hands, as there is art of which 
common workmen have little knowledge, as there 
are truths in science and philosophy which only 
those who are instructed can comprehend, so are 
there thoughts and truths in the kingdom of hea- 
ven which must be taught and learned. A mystery 
is not something obscure, but something which is 
covered, and from which the covering can be re- 
moved. When we are able to receive it, it ceases 
to be a mystery. Thus a sealed letter is a mys- 
tery ; but when it is opened, the mystery at once 



THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 273 

disappears. Perhaps not, for it may be written 
in a language which is unknown to us. Then 
when one has learned the language he becomes 
possessed of the mystery. Perhaps not, for the 
letter may contain words whose meaning he does 
not know, technical terms which are entirely 
strange to him, and not till he has learned the 
meaning of these does he gain the mystery that 
is concealed. It is very plain that the mysteries 
of the kingdom of heaven are truths which can be 
learned by common men if they will listen to one 
who can teach them. The notion which some 
appear to hold that heaven in its truth and purity 
and blessedness has nothing which any man cannot 
readily understand and enjoy without being taught 
is not to be indulged. Heaven is thus lowered to 
the capacity of men, and bereaved that all men 
may certainly possess it. This is not the method 
of the New Testament, which leaves heaven a place 
of glory and holiness, and changes men that they 
may enjoy it ; raising the common man to the high 
heavens, and not bringing heaven down to the 
plane of the common thought and desire. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to 
reveal to men the Divine Mysteries, and to bring 
them in all the wealth of their meaning within the 
comprehension of the wise man and the child. 
Mystery is all around us. It is in this world with 



274 THE CHRISTIAN MYSTEEIES 

its life. It is in the stars in their courses, and the 
light which streams down upon the earth. Even 
of this we must say with the apostle, " We know 
in part." The mystery is in men who live upon 
the earth, and in their life, with its meaning and 
intent. Wordsworth well calls it, " This unin- 
telligible world." We are learning more and 
more about it. Students study the mysteries and 
explorers venture into them, and in this eager 
desire to enlarge our knowledge lies much of the 
interest of life. Yet even to-day it is as true as 
when the Hebrew poet sang, that all Nature is but 
as the garment of God ; that these are but the 
outskirts of his ways ; " and how small a whisper 
is heard of Him ! " 

Christ interprets to us the world and human 
life ; but He does more than this, for He reveals 
to us God. " No man hath seen God at any time ; 
the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the 
Father, He hath declared Him." Yet even now 
our knowledge of God is far from the complete 
reality of his infinite being. But eternal life is 
here. It is not eternal living and breathing ; it is 
not eternal working, even in ways of honesty; it 
is not prolonged suffering, which must at last have 
its recompense in pleasure. But this is Eternal 
Life, Christ said, to know God, and Me. Yet we 
are met by the old question which at once excites 



THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 275 

and baffles our hope : " Canst thou by searching 
find out God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty 
unto perfection ? " " Thou art a God that hidest 
thyself," cried the ancient prophet. He does not 
hide himself because He would be unknown, but 
from necessity, as the sun hides itself in its own 
light, so that if one should insist upon seeing it 
he would very likely become unable to see any- 
thing. God is so great, so glorious, and infinite 
in all his perfections, that no one is able to look 
upon Him. Yet we must know God. How strange 
it is to hear men talk learnedly about Him, as if 
they could contain Him in the compass of their 
minds ; or lay down the rules for his governance 
and determine his decrees, constructing their own 
thought of the Eternal ! It were far more worthy 
of us to bow in adoration. 

But Christ reveals Him to us. We learn as- 
suredly from Him what before we dimly saw or 
imagined or hoped, — that God is spirit ; that 
God is love, and craves for himself the love of the 
hearts that He has made ; that God is our Father, 
pitying his children, caring for them, loving them 
in a fullness we are not able to comprehend. We 
can know God. The words of Him who revealed 
to men the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are 
plain and true : " He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father." 



276 THE CHRISTIAX MYSTERIES 

But herein, again, is a mystery. How can we 
see Christ ? Only as He reveals himself to us. 
No study which leads us any other way, no thought 
which keeps us from listening to Him, can make 
known to us who He is. We must let Hiui teach 
us, grateful for the largeness of the revelation if 
we are not able to receive the infinite truth which 
He is. Even his coming into the world is a 
mystery. We speak of the Incarnation, but who 
shall tell what it is for the Word which was in the 
beginning with God, and is God, to become flesh 
and dwell among men ? Or what it is for Him 
who was in the form of God to take on Him the 
form of a servant, and, consenting to the human 
life which is really his own, work out the divine 
purpose which has brought Him into the world ? 
Yet we know that God is manifest in the flesh. 
Christ has redeemed the world. But again, what 
is Redemption ? His whole life is full of a redeem- 
ing power. He gives himself to the Cross, seek- 
ing and saving those who are lost. He gives his 
body to be broken that men may have the Bread 
of Life, and consents that his blood shall be poured 
out for the remission of our sins. All this is plain, 
for this He plainly taught. They who receive this 
gracious teaching know the mystery of Christ ; not 
those who only hear of Him, admire Him, and 
consent to his precepts as the best rule of life, but 



THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 277 

those who truly learn of Him, believe his words 
because He speaks them, grateful for all they are 
able to understand and trustful for the larger 
knowledge which other years and other worlds 
may bring. 

How strange it is, again, to hear men talk of 
Him easily and lightly, as if He were one of them- 
selves, and define Him and bound Him whom 
angels worship, whom we are able to look upon 
because He comes veiled, that we may see Him ! 
Whereas, we should, in thankfulness which cannot 
be expressed, listen to Him in silence, receive his 
words without question, obey them in unswerving 
fidelity, trusting his promises with an assurance 
nothing can interrupt. 

" Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell." 

With all the greatness of St. Paul's knowledge, he 
held it as his master desire to know Christ. I bow 
my knees, he said, writing to men who had learned 
of him, and who needed more than he could teach 
them, — I bow my knees and pray that you may be 
strong " to apprehend the breadth and length and 
height and depth, and to know the love of Christ 
which passeth knowledge." Had men known who 
He was, they had not crucified the Lord of glory. 
Did we know who He is, He were not kept knock- 
ing at the door. We should let our adoration 



278 THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 

blend with the reverence of the angels. Let us 
also fall upon our knees and remaining there give 
thanks for the knowledge which has been granted 
us, while we pray that we may know Him whose 
love for us passes knowledge. 

We cannot perfectly know Christ and perfectly 
understand his divine far-reaching words ; but to 
the humble and attentive heart it is given to know 
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Thus 
learning of Christ all which we are able to receive, 
and allowing this to increase, we learn of God. 
But this revelation of God is greater than we can 
comprehend. Christ revealed this, that there is 
in the Divine Nature an eternal threefoldness in 
which we should believe. He said that when a 
man became his disciple, and thus the child of God, 
the name of God was to be written with water 
upon him ; and the name which thus became sacra- 
mental, always marking him who bore it as the 
friend of the Son of God was this, — The Father, 
The Son, and The Holy Ghost. Into this the 
disciple was baptized. There men should have 
stopped, bringing to this truth other words which 
confirmed it, and finding in their own lives some 
analogy to the life of the Eternal. It was a place 
for silence and worship and waiting ; the worship 
in reverence, the waiting for light. Men had been 
better off if they had been able to consent to 



THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 279 

this. They were not able. It was not in their 
mind. They took this mysterious revelation and 
gave to it a name which has been a misfortune. 
They defined it, and with every new sentence les- 
sened the clearness of the truth. There was no 
language in which the Eternal Nature of God 
could be expressed, and the thought became con- 
fused when words which were never meant for 
such uses were set in this high employ. The words 
were convenient. The definitions aided the inter- 
change of thought, but they should have been held 
as the inadequate expression of an eternal mystery. 
But presently men began to contend, to form 
separate schools, to set up distinct churches, to 
part altar from altar, and temple from temple. It 
seems the strangest thing in all the contests of the 
world, that grown-up men, believing and calling 
themselves Christians, should dispute and separate 
and accuse and disown one another, when the whole 
contention related to the deepest and highest truth 
of the universe, the innermost nature of the Eter- 
nal God. There were other methods into which 
men were driven by their reluctance to wait upon 
a mystery. They resorted to that which has never 
been successful in religious thought, and tried by 
the rules of the earth to prove and disprove the 
thoughts of men. They took slate and pencil to 
find out if three things could be one thing. Some 



280 THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 

said that it could not be, and they held to their 
figures. Some said that there was a higher use of 
figures than that, a heavenly method ; and giving 
up their pencils, they appealed to faith, as if faith 
were less accurate than arithmetic. We are grow- 
ing wiser, I think, though we are not yet wise 
enough for the light which is given to us. In the 
presence of the infinite nature of God, it becomes 
us to stand, or, better, to kneel and be still. We 
have no occasion to be baffled or to be disturbed. 
We are not asked to spend the swift years of life 
in the attempt to be wise beyond what the Son of 
God has spoken. Here are his words, and to those 
who listen to Him it is given to understand the 
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. 

Our Lord very clearly revealed to us the care of 
God over all his creatures, so that the sparrow and 
the lily are tenderly regarded ; and He taught that 
we are of more value than many sparrows, and that 
a greater care will be given to us. To listen to 
Him is to believe in the Providence of God which is 
always mindful of us ; and in a special Providence 
which regards us every one, and which, when the 
need comes, passes readily into miracle. Yet we 
are not altogether clear concerning the ways of God 
with men. The allotments of life are not as certain 
as we think they might be. The prosperity of the 
wicked and the afflictions which befall the good 



THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 281 

confuse us. At times there seems to be little 
thought of us, and we are driven for an instant to 
flee from Providence to what men call Fate, or 
Chance, which is a form of Fate. There is a mys- 
tery in Providence. There must be, for the ways of 
God are after his mind, and not ours. He sees in 
a perfect light. He regards us with a more accurate 
knowledge ; and his purposes take a broader and 
longer range. At last, when we know more of the 
mystery of Providence, the things which have con- 
fused us here will be regarded with content. Our 
Lord's word to one of his disciples may be extended 
beyond the meaning of that moment. He would 
wash the feet of the man. The man protested that 
He should never do it. Then wisely he consented 
to that which he did not approve, and Jesus spoke 
to him the words which cover many interests that 
are greater in our minds : " What I do thou knowest 
not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." 

It is among the plainest of Christ's teachings that 
men shall pray. It is our nature, for the child 
untaught asks for the thing he wants, and seeks for 
that which he would find. We are readily brought 
to ask higher gifts of . one who is able to bestow 
them. He gave this as a principle of life, a rule of 
discipleship. Nothing is clearer than this. Yet 
here again is the mystery. Why should God need 
to have us ask Him for what He sees that we require? 



282 THE CHRISTIAN MYSTEBIES 

Why should his love need the poor quickening of 
our desires ? Why is it that so often men who do 
not pray are prospered and those whose life is prayer 
are afflicted ? Why is the answer so long delayed, 
and why does another thing come rather than that 
we sought ? There are many suggestions to which 
we cannot make a reply which will content those 
who do not care to pray. Yet if we listen to our 
Lord, who himself had need to pray, who spent 
whole nights upon the mountain in prayer, we shall 
learn the mystery, and pray and believe and wait, 
certain, because He said it, that the things we need 
and ask, that we may fulfill our ministry, shall 
surely be granted to us. 

We look along our years, and see that presently 
we shall disappear from the earth, and what will 
come to us then ? We shall live then. " Because 
I live, ye shall live," He said. This we are sure of. 
" I am the Resurrection, I am the Life," He said; 
but long afterward the apostle to whom it was 
given especially to be the world's teacher in his 
name, wrote to those who had believed on Christ, 
it is a mystery : " Behold, I show you a mystery. 
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. 
This mortal must put on immortality. Christ is 
risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of 
them that slept." He was well aware that he had 
not made all things clear to his friends in Corinth, 



THE CHRISTIAN MYSTEBIES 283 

and he asked their question, that he might reply to 
it. " The dead are raised up, you say ; but how are 
the dead raised up ? What is the body with which 
they come ? " He answered with another mystery : 
" The seed falls into the ground, parts with the 
form of its life, and reappears as grain. God giveth 
it a body as it hath pleased him. So shall it be 
with men." We have gone no further than this. 
We still read those words as the fullest unveiling 
of the things which are awaiting us ; and if we can 
receive the teaching in which he believed, for which 
he was content to suffer, we hold the mystery in 
quietness, waiting for the disclosures which in our 
common thought will soon enough be made. But 
it is very noticeable that from this inspired record 
of the Eesurrection and immortality he passes to the 
conclusion which touches our daily life ; from the 
mystery of the future to the assurance of the 
present : " Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye 
stedf ast, immovable, always abounding in the work 
of the Lord ; forasmuch as ye know that your labor 
is not in vain in the Lord." 

This is to be noticed, that whatever of truth may 
for the present be hidden from us, we are denied 
none of the truth which we need for our daily life, 
for the doing of our duty, for the bearing of our 
burden, — nothing which is needed for comfort and 
strength, for the enriching of the hope which shall 



284 THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 

send our thoughts into the eternal day. We may 
well mark the distinction between mysteries which 
it would be of intense interest and mysteries 
which it would be of immediate advantage for us to 
know: for those we may be kept waiting, but these 
are always waiting upon us. The words of the old 
preacher are true, perhaps more true than in his 
time : " The articles of our faith are those depths 
in which the elephant may swim ; and the rules of 
our practice those shallows in which the lamb may 
wade." Dr. South adds, " As both light and dark- 
ness make but one natural day, so both the clearness 
of the things to be done, and the obscurity of the 
things to be believed, constitute but one entire 
religion." We should be very glad that we know. 
We should be very glad that we know only in part, 
that there remain to us treasures of knowledge yet 
to be opened; higher thoughts, better thoughts, 
clearer revelations, than those which have already 
been granted us. It is this knowledge yet to be 
revealed which gives interest to the student of 
Nature, and to every one whose eager mind carries 
him beyond himself. We are listening to a song 
so delightful that we are glad to be assured that the 
strains we shall presently hear are better than any 
which have reached us. We are happy as we 
travel to a fine country where we are to see fairer 
fields and nobler mountains ; and sailing in a good 



THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 285 

ship upon a kindly sea we are reluctant to touch 
the coast where the voyage will end. The astrono- 
mer continues to search the heavens, adding night 
to night, and glass to glass, in the patient belief 
that new worlds will break upon his vision, new 
light flash from remoter suns. Nature waits 
patiently for our search. It was only a few days 
ago that a great telescope which had been sent 
westward in triumph fell, with the building which 
contained it, and it cannot be used till weary 
months have raised it to its place. The glass fell, 
but not a star trembled ; and through all the re- 
building, and the lifting of the great eye of the 
world toward the heavens, the stars will wait, keep- 
ing the mysteries which they have held for centuries 
till men are able to perceive them. 

We are living in the light. It was truly the 
light of heaven and the light of the world which 
came among men when the Son of man appeared. 
We have clear visions of God who is our Father, 
of his unchanging love, his infinite mercy, his pur- 
pose of eternal grace. We know Christ. We 
have heard his words. The truth He taught we 
repeat to children, and we send it out to gladden 
the earth. We know the blessedness of eternal 
life, of the walk with God along these common 
ways, of the earnest of the everlasting inheritance 
of the saints. But we do not know it all. Some 



286 THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 

mysteries have been revealed, and are ready to be 
revealed to any heart which will learn of the Light 
and the Truth of the world. But one, that disciple 
whom Jesus loved, with great joy wrote the words 
whose meaning has lost nothing of its grace : We 
are the children of God, but it doth not yet appear, 
— I cannot tell you what we shall be. But when 
the mystery of Christ is more perfectly revealed, 
and we see Him as He is, we shall be like Him. 
St. Paul cried, " Oh, the depth of the riches, both 
of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! " And 
with rejoicing heart he bore witness to " the riches 
of the glory of the mystery of God, which is 
Christ in you, the hope of glory." 

What, then, are we to do ? We are to learn of 
Christ, to be his scholars, to be content to begin 
with our letters, to advance to the simple truths in 
words of two letters, or three. Sometimes men 
have risen to higher attainments. Here and there 
has been a man who needed words of many sylla- 
bles to express the truth which has been given to 
him. The chief point is to begin there with Him. 
" Unto you," He said, " unto you who hear me, 
and believe and obey, it is given to know the mys- 
teries of the kingdom of heaven." 

It will be worth much to us to be well assured 
that our life is bearing us steadily onward into the 
light, that in this early morning of our years we 



THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 287 

have the noon before us. I have been interested 
in reading, as you have done, of that which came 
to the Arctic explorer who now is receiving so 
much praise and congratulation. He is very frank, 
as in his artless words he tells us, not alone of 
what he did and saw, but of what he felt and 
hoped, of his defeats and triumphs, and the experi- 
ence of the mind and heart within him. He had 
studied it all out beforehand. He expected to find 
a shallow polar sea and a current which would 
easily move him upon it. He came to the Polar Sea, 
and there was no line on board the Fram which 
was long enough to sound the icy waters on which 
he floated. His theory of the current disappeared. 
Thus, thrown out of his expectations, baffled in 
his immediate purposes, what should he do ? He 
recalled, what I had forgotten, that Columbus dis- 
covered America by means of a mistake, and that 
a mistake which was made by another, and he 
writes : " Heaven only knows where my mistake 
will lead us. Only I repeat once more, the Sibe- 
rian driftwood on the coast of Greenland cannot 
lie, and the way it went, we must go." To this 
current he was ready to commit his ship and his 
hope. I read it as a parable. In this world we 
are often mistaken. The shallow seas of life 
which we look for prove deeper than we thought, 
and the currents we thought to find are not in 



- S S THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 

waiting for us. What shall we do, — far at the 
north of our days on strange waters ? Trust the 
currents that are certain. Our thoughts may be- 
tray us, but Nature and grace are honest. If we 
are on the course that leads through life to light, 
there will be many signs of it. The growing con- 
sciousness of a divine spirit, an answered prayer, 
a hope fulfilled, a longing satisfied beyond our 
thought, many a thing perhaps as trifling on the 
sea of life as Siberian driftwood on the coast of 
Greenland, will make us certain of our way, sure 
that we are on the stream whose deep waters move 
constantly onward to that country which is our 
own. There will come to us from the further 
shore words of cheer, of call, of welcome, and 
something of the fragrance of the celestial country, 
borne upon the winds, the harbinger of the end- 
less delight. All this comes to us when tenderly 
and patiently we listen to Him who alone is able 
to teach us, and learn and enjoy aforetime the 
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. 

There is for all of us a glorious mystery, a rich 
and blessed mystery. It is Christ in us, the hope 
of glory. Christ in us, the hope of glory, is the 
riches of the glory of the mystery of God. There 
is little in English poetry which is more delicate 
and delightful than the story of the country boy, 
living far inland, to whom there came a shell, 



THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 289 

brought perhaps by some sailor returning from 
his voyage. The boy wondered at its convolutions 
and at the sound from its smooth lips, when he 
held it to his ear, — 

" In silence hushed, his very soul 
Listened intensely ; and his countenance soon 
Brightened with joy ; for from within were heard 
Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed 
Mysterious union with its native sea." 

The boy heard the carols on the coast, and the 
anthem underneath the stars, the song by the 
fisher's boat of Galilee, and the organ tones of 
the great deep when Euroclydon smote the waves. 

So he who lays his ear upon the heart of Christ 
listens to sounds from the far away ; mysterious 
murmurings out of Eternity, — the voice, the still, 
small voice of God ! 



XVI 

THE SONG IN A STRANGE LAND 

Psalm cxxxvii. 4 



THE SONG IN A STRANGE LAND 



" How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange 
land? 9 ' Sing it as you would in any other land. 
It is a song not of the land but of the heart. It 
is not the mere rejoicing, but the worship of God 
for his goodness. Our confidence in Him should 
be so well grounded that no change of land can 
change our song. 

The Psalm of the Captivity is one of the finest, 
while one of the saddest, in the Psalter. The peo- 
ple had been carried away from their own country; 
and as exiles, despoiled and despairing, they went 
down by the rivers of Babylon, the Euphrates and 
the Tigris, the Chaboras and Ulai, and there, 
away from the city, they uttered their lament. 
They felt that there was more sympathy in the 
river than in the city's streets. There is nothing 
in Nature which seems more in sympathy with the 
changing experience of men than the ocean, which 
is continually changing, sometimes placid and rest- 
ful, sometimes full of energy and loud complaint. 
They felt the friendliness even of the rivers ; and 



•294: THE SOXG IX A 8TBANGE LAXD 

in the weeping willows, where they hung the harps 
for which they had no use, they found a mind kin- 
dred to their own. 

It had been very much better if they had 
brought their songs into their exile, and had con- 
tinued to sing them. It would have promoted 
their own courage, lessened the sorrows of their 
banishment, quickened their hope, uplifted their 
spirit. It would have been much better for their 
children also. When the first generation had 
passed, and the opportunity to return to their own 
country was offered to those who had inherited 
their name and nationality, they nearly all pre- 
ferred to remain where they were. It is estimated 
that not more than one in seven cared to go back 
from Babylon to Jerusalem. They were contented 
in exile. There they had formed alliances and 
made investments, and the habits of a strange land 
had become their own. In losing the songs which 
had expressed the patriotic longing of their fathers, 
the children had lost the love of their own country, 
which would have been kept alive if the strong 
feeling which belonged to the Jewish heart had 
been nurtured by the melodies which expressed in 
passionate terms their feeling and their devotion. 

It would have been better for the people of 
Babylon to have heard the songs of Israel, to know 
what Jehovah had done for those who worshiped 



THE SONG IN A STRANGE LAND 295 

Him, to see a confidence in his favor which could 
not be changed or interrupted. To have this ex- 
pressed in fine poetry and with vivid imagination, 
would have been to them a clear and strong witness 
which might have persuaded some of them to put 
their trust in the God of Israel. It is to be added 
to this that Jerusalem deserved the songs. Her 
history, her glory which could not be forgotten, 
the faith which she cherished, surely should have 
had the response from every heart that loved her, 
and the city of the great king should have been 
celebrated in the loftiest songs of patriotism and 
religion, the patriotism which is religion. 

But leaving these special considerations, let us 
confess that if we believe in God we should be 
able to say this everywhere, to sing it under any 
conditions. Our faith is not at all a matter of 
geography, to be determined in some degree by 
latitude and longitude, or by the conditions in 
which we find ourselves. Our confidence in God 
should be the act of a free spirit. If God is ever 
to be praised, He is always to be praised. The 
trust which w T ill not survive removal must have 
been always a fragile faith. How could it serve 
us at any time when we have need of help, or 
hold up our heart when the burden is heavy upon 
it ? If we are to have a serviceable faith, it must 
be one whose force is from above, and not from 



296 THE SONG IN A STBANGE LAND 

beneath us or about us. It is when the stress is 
heaviest that we need the confidence which will 
bear us up. Who would sail in a ship which was 
seaworthy only in good weather ? The waves and 
the billows will sometimes go over us, and we need 
underneath us the arms which are everlasting, 
from which no force of wind or wave can sweep 
us away. Let us remember also, that whatever be 
the changes and losses of life, the greater blessings 
remain. God does not change, nor separate him- 
self from us. There is in his promises no variable- 
ness or shadow of turning. The past is ours, with 
the treasure which it holds for us, and the future 
has more abundant blessings which will not be 
removed. The blessings of life which are of the 
highest value cannot be taken from us, and our 
belief of this should be so well assured that it 
cannot be shaken. If the God whom we trust 
does not change, the trust itself should remain 
firm. Many of the changes of life are of our own 
making, and in no wise affect the goodness of God. 
Or if they are of his making, his love which has 
consented to them remains unaltered, and brings 
it to pass that all things shall work together for 
the profit of the faithful, persistent heart. If it 
was ever true that we are in the care of God and 
may look for his favor, it is true even more when 
we are afflicted. His permission of the troubles 



THE SONG IN A STRANGE LAND 297 

which visit us is good testimony to the pleasures 
which shall succeed them. It is told of two of the 
rabbis that when they looked upon the ruins of 
Jerusalem one of them mourned, and the other 
rejoiced. " See the desolation of the Holy City," 
one cried ; " what is left to us ? " " See the deso- 
lation of the Holy City," the other answered; 
" God is left to us. He said that for our sins our 
city should be ruined, but He promised his favor 
to the penitent and obedient heart. If his word 
is sure when it means our loss, it is equally certain 
when it means our gain. In the desolation of the 
city is the pledge of its restoration. The word of 
our God abideth forever." 

The truth is, that by the changes of life, if we 
consent to them, and wisely use them, our char- 
acter is improved, and our song exalted. That 
we may sing the Lord's song in the best way we 
must sing it with the spirit and understanding, 
even as the apostle taught us. That which deepens 
our nature and enlarges our thought gives new 
beauty and melody to the songs which we sing. 
There was a deep meaning in that which was said 
to a noted singer by her teacher, when he found 
that with all the perfection of her manner, and all 
the accuracy of her voice, something was still want- 
ing to make the music all which it could be in its 
purity and in the delight which it should give. 



298 THE SOXG IX A STEAXGE LAND 

He said, " If I could make you suffer for two 
years, you would be the best contralto in the 
world." We express the same idea in simpler 
phrase when we commend a singer for the heart 
which is in the song, and sometimes we speak of 
the tear in the voice. It is deep experience which 
makes deep emotion, and the tear of the heart 
which gives feeling to the melody. If this be true 
when we are singing for the delight of men, it is 
even more true when we are singing to God, who, 
far beyond all others, can appreciate the true senti- 
ment of the true heart. Feeling is best expressed 
in music. The captivity which improves the feel- 
ing should therefore improve the song, and it were 
a pity to hang the harp upon the willows at the 
time when we can bring from it its finest melody. 

We are very often in a strange land. There let 
us sing the song of the Lord which we have learned 
at home. In this summer time which is carrying 
so many from their accustomed places, up into 
the mountains, down by the sea, across the ocean, 
where new faces will be around us and other lives 
will wait for the touch of our life, let us be true to 
God, to ourselves, to that which we have learned 
in our work, and have gained by our living, and 
with our best skill give our best witness in our 
constant faith, and be careful to sing the Lord's 
song in a strange land. Experience itself becomes 



THE SONG IN A STRANGE LAND 299 

a strange land. We are carried into joys that we 
have not known. New pleasures surround us and 
minister to our delight. Let us sing the gladness 
which comes to us, sing the praise of Him who has 
made our lines to fall in pleasant places. Or if 
the experience be a sad one, and we become lonely 
and poor and separate from the world, instead of 
dwelling alone with our grief let us give it expres- 
sion in a psalm of longing and desire, in a cry to 
God for succor, in praise to God for the blessings 
which remain, and most of all for himself, who is 
a very present help in every time of trouble, and 
should be blessed for being present, and for the 
grace which is to bring the new day when the 
strange night is overpast. We are more likely to 
think of God in our sorrow than in our delight. 
If all things are according to our mind, we become 
self-sufficient, perhaps, proud of our accomplish- 
ments, secure in our prosperity ; conscious of a 
great work that we have done, and which has been 
rewarded. Unless we are careful we may withhold 
the praise which we have offered in a humbler 
time, and lessen the sense of our dependence in all 
things upon the favor of God. You will much 
of tener find the heart of a man in prosperity silent, 
than the heart of a man in adversity. When God 
lays his hand in chastening upon the trustful soul, 
for the soul's good, He makes the hand itself a 



800 THE SONG IN A STRANGE LAND 

comfort, and raises the spirit into his own peace. 
We ought, for all reasons, in whatever land we 
may have our place, there to think upon the Lord 
and to sing his song. It may be a hymn of lofty 
praise ; it may be the breathing of a wearied child, 
longing for comfort. It is not so much the words 
of the song, as the heart which sings it, that God 
delights in. The singing preserves the unity of 
our life, holds together our dark days and our 
bright days, and makes of them one day. It gives 
consolation to our faith, and will not let it be 
shaken because the ground trembles. It keeps 
the remembrance of our mercies, which should 
never be forgotten, because they are still our mer- 
cies. It quickens our aspiration, and raises the 
heart into the glad thought of God. We should 
take pains to keep the heart free from its surround- 
ings, calm and strong, whether we walk by the 
banks of the Jordan, or wait by the banks of the 
Tigris. Coleridge said, " It is hard to sing with 
the breast against a thorn." It is very true, but 
sing, and sing the Lord's song. Is our praise to 
be at the mercy of a thorn ? Is our hold upon 
thought and feeling so slight as that ? It is fine to 
rise above the present experience, whatever it may 
be, and rest in God, singing ourselves into adora- 
tion, or singing ourselves to sleep. 

We need to cultivate the spirit of praise, for 



THE SONG IN A STRANGE LAND 301 

ourselves and for the promotion of our joy ; for 
others, that they may be the sharers of our joy, 
and may rejoice themselves ; and for God, who 
loves to listen to our songs. The Psalms seem to 
have been written for this purpose. They teach 
us, but that is not their great mission. Their great 
work is to inspire us, to take our thoughts, desires, 
sorrows, whatever they may be at any time, and to 
give them words better than our own in which we 
can praise and worship. There is nothing in the 
greatly varied experiences of our life which does 
not find words to meet it in the Psalter. The 
Psalms will readily "requite serious regard with 
opportune delight." It has been very well said by 
an English preacher that the Psalter is not a pic- 
ture with the light on it, but it is a window with 
the light in it. The glories of the window are 
permanent. The light enters them, and takes 
shape and color for itself, and brings forth the 
forms of strength and beauty which are in the 
glass. The dimness becomes softened and cheered, 
the brightness becomes enriched and glorified. 
The window reveals the light. The light reveals 
the window. Steady as the goodness of God 
should be our thought of Him, and our song 
which praises Him. The song will give form to 
our thought, and the thought will give life to our 
song. It seems to be the case that the Psalms are 



S02 THE SOXG IN A STRANGE LAND 

loss enjoyed than many other parts of the Holy 
Scriptures. It seems to he true that the mind 
needs to be pure and generous and spiritual truly 
to enjoy the Psalms, as we enjoy the Gospels, with 
the life of Christ embodied in them, and bestowing 
itself upon us. But when we become more per- 
suaded of the grace of God, more impressed with 
his constant love, and our feeling is too deep to be 
restrained, there are no words of our own in which 
it can be uttered; then the words of the old 
singers, trained in the school of earnest life and 
inspired of God, become precious to us. The use 
of the Psalms is more than this, for it enlarges 
the feeling, purifies the heart, ennobles the joy, 
creates the spirit of praise to which it gives the 
song of the Lord. One has to need the Psalms 
before he greatly prizes them. When an exceed- 
ing gladness comes to the soul, the mind familiar 
with the words of the old singers breaks forth into 
their glad strains. It is not till we are the sheep 
of the Shepherd, and are aware that He is lead- 
ing us and making us to rest by the still waters 
that we know the twenty-third Psalm. It is not 
till we are in the valley of the shadow of death 
that we can sing, as it should be sung, " I will fear 
no evil, for thou art with me." The Psalms deepen 
and exalt life. The deepened and exalted life is 
fond of the Psalms. If we carry them with us 



THE SONG IN A STRANGE LAND 303 

into a strange land, we have the song which is to 
be sung, and the air of the strange land will 
quicken and sanctify the melody. 

This spirit which has been commended is the 
spirit of heroism, of bravery, and earnestness. 
The young men and young women who in the 
summer time are going out from the quiet retreats 
of study into the world which needs them and is 
waiting for them are prepared, not merely for 
pleasant fields and sunny skies, for places of easy 
delight and graceful service; they are looking 
forward, with a vision they cannot wholly interpret, 
to work which is to be done, which they will not 
refuse, to perils from which they will not flee, to 
hardship from which they will not shrink. The 
sword in their hand is polished and the scabbard 
has no mark, but they are willing, even desirous, 
that the sword should lose its brilliancy, and the 
scabbard be so bent with use that the sword cannot 
be thrust within it. They believe in the victory 
which they are confident they will deserve, and 
they propose to be constant in their courage, what- 
ever land may give to them the battlefield. 

We have all looked with great interest upon the 
monument which has been recently erected and 
dedicated to the devotion of a young soldier who 
has gained the hearts, not alone of those who knew 
him, but of all who know manhood and honor it. 



304 THE SONG IX A STBANGE LAND 

lie gave his life to the country when his life was 
before him. He gave himself to the war with all 
its perils. He placed himself at the head of men 
despised, untried in peace, and unproved in war, 
and he led them on to the battles which had more 
than their wonted danger, and where, because the 
men who followed him were black, defeat was 
worse than death. We see him now where he 
rides among his men, dark faces behind him and 
before him, a dark-faced drummer-boy leading the 
way ; but his eye is constant, his heart is steady, 
his greatness never fails him, as he moves forward 
to the fate to which he has consented, to fall among 
the men whom he has led, and who with him were 
faithful to the end. He sang the song of his 
country, the song of courage, the song of life, not 
in the easy days of peace, not in the ordinary 
dangers of war. He sang the Lord's song in a 
strange land, and the country joins to-day in the 
applauding psalm. 

We think of the apostle and his companion, who 
by reason of their fidelity in a strange land were 
thrust into a pagan prison. They were beaten. 
They were cast into the inner prison. Their feet 
were made fast in the stocks. But at midnight 
the prisoners heard them praying to God, which 
it was natural that they should do in their extrem- 
ity, seeing it was for his cause their captivity had 



THE SONG IN A STRANGE LAND 305 

come to them ; but the prisoners heard them sing- 
ing the praises of God, for they sang the Lord's 
song in a strange land, and presently the stones 
were shaking in the prison walls. 

This Psalm of the Captivity was not David's. 
Even if the chronology did not make this plain, 
the Psalm is not at all in David's manner. This 
is not the way a man sings who has been brought 
up as a shepherd, who has guarded his flock, and, 
when the lion and the bear came against them, has 
caught the wild beasts with his hands, and torn 
their jaws asunder ; and who, when the army of 
Israel trembled before the Philistine, with a stone 
from his shepherd's sling has laid the giant at his 
feet. He sang in the wilderness, at the king's 
court, among the mountains, and in the dens where 
he found refuge, in the palace and on the throne. 
They say that he hung his harp in the trees ; not 
because he had no use for it, but that he might set 
it to diviner strains than it had ever known. He 
let the wind play among the strings, and waking 
he caught the melody of Nature, and with his own 
hands wedded it to immortal verse. He could 
sing the Psalms which have become the songs of 
the world. " In the valley of the shadow of death, 
thy rod, thy staff, they comfort me. Surely good- 
ness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my 



306 THE SOXG IN A STRANGE LAND 

life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord 
forever." 

We remember reverently that at the last Pass- 
over, on the last night before his Crucifixion, our 
Lord took the cup which held his life, and gave it 
to his disciples with thanksgiving, and that when 
the old sacrament had been transfigured into the 
new, before they went to the Mount of Olives, 
they sang a hymn. This is the true spirit. It is 
the Christ spirit. He had been born in a strange 
land, and there the angels sang. At the foot of 
his own Cross He prayed with his friends and 
for them, and as they went out they sang the Lord's 
song. 

We are moving on to a land that is strange, — 
to a land that is not strange, if we are God's chil- 
dren, and He who has ascended into heaven is our 
friend and Saviour. Let us go on singing our pil- 
grim songs between the hills of the world, and upon 
their summits. We shall sing in heaven, but the 
song of heaven is to be learned here, " Unto him 
that loved us." If we are familiar with the words 
and with the tune, we shall be able to sing them on 
our way ; and at the end, where all things are in 
the harmony of the eternal delight, we shall sing 
the Lord's song in the country which is our own. 



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